Centre plans legislation for new aviation regulator

The government is mulling a piece of legislation for setting up an autonomous body in place of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) and providing it with powers to take action if it felt that the safety of passengers were in danger due to financial problems of an airlines.

The Cabinet is likely to take up a draft bill on setting up a civil aviation authority (CAA) to replace the DGCA at its meeting on Thursday. The move to form the CAA to meet the standards set by the United Nation’s International Civil Aviation Organisation was in the pipeline for long.

According to the draft bill, the new regulator is being set up to ensure better management of civil aviation safety over air transport and navigation service operators and matters regarding financial stress on the safety of operation.

At present, the DGCA is under the Civil Aviation Ministry. It has limited financial powers, hence is not effective in making adequate structural changes to meet the demands of the aviation sector. The regulator, which has around 300 vacancies at various levels, cannot recruit even a peon on its own.

The proposed CAA, on the lines of the US’ Federal Aviation Administration, is likely to have the power to suspend operations of an airline if it finds that the financial problems of a company can affect its operations and safety of passengers.

For example, the CAA can suspend the operations of an airline citing non-payment of salaries to pilots, which could put them in distress and affect their performance, thus endangering the lives of passengers.

The draft bill also said no civil court shall have jurisdiction over any matter which the CAA is empowered by the law.

“No court shall take cognisance of an offence punishable under this Act, except upon a complaint in writing made by the authority or by any officer of the authority duly authorised by the authority for this purpose,” the draft said.

The proposed set-up will have a chairman, a director-general and seven to nine members. The director-general and up to five members will be full-time incumbents.

The full-time members will look into matters like airworthiness and aircraft engineering, flight standard operations, aviation safety, aerodromes, air navigation systems and air space management, air transport, financial stress on safety of operations, consumer protection, environment regulations, human resource and finance.

According to the bill, the CAA can call upon any operator seeking information on financial data or explanation regarding its functions, as it may require to assess its performance. It can also appoint one or more persons to conduct an inquiry into the affairs of any operator and direct its officers to inspect the account books or other documents of any operator.