Parliament passes bill to provide statutory status to aviation regulators

Parliament on Tuesday passed a bill that seeks to improve India's aviation safety ratings, provide statutory status to regulatory institutions like the DGCA even as the Opposition accused the government of centralising powers in its hands and demanded a probe into privatisation of airports.

Rajya Sabha passed the Aircraft (Amendment) Bill, 2020 with a voice vote after a discussion, six months after the Lok Sabha cleared the legislation in March.

Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Puri said the "operating thrust" of the Bill was to provide statutory powers to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) and the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) and it was necessary for moving forward with an exponential growth of the sector.

He said the amendments were necessary as the growth in civil aviation has thrown many challenges such as saturated airport capacity, lack of trained manpower, limited manpower capabilities.

The new amendments also provide the provision to raise penalty for violation from up to Rs 10 lakh to Rs 1 crore. The last revision was made in 2007 from Rs 1,000-2,000 to Rs 10 lakh. However, no change has been proposed in terms of imprisonment that is at two years in most cases, he said.

Rejecting the criticism on privatisation of airports, Puri said since the privatisation of Mumbai and Delhi airports in 2006, the Airports Authority of India has received Rs 29,000 crore. This money has been utilised to develop airport infrastructure in other parts of the country, he said.

Initiating the debate on the Bill, Congress' K C Venugopal accused the government of promoting crony capitalism by privatising airports in the name of developing them.

Referring to the Adani group getting the opportunity to operate and develop six airports of Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Bengaluru, Jaipur, Guwahati and Thiruvananthapuram, he said, "there is a move to monopolise Indian airports. In the future, all Indian airports will be owned by only one company. How can you allow this...There is a clear violation of norms in giving airports to a single private entity. This is a clear scam of public money...I am asking for an inquiry into all this. This is a clear case of corruption."

Countering the charge, BJP member GVL Narasimha Rao said the Narendra Modi government acted in complete transparency in developing airports and alleged that crony capitalism was promoted during the Congress-led UPA government. He said the courts had to intervene due to corruption when the UPA regime went ahead with 2G and coal auctions.

CPI's Binoy Vishwam said the Modi government has taken FDI as a panacea for all problems and is hell bent on privatising all companies and ports, which is a "dangerous" move for the nation against Atmanirbhar Bharat (self reliant India).

Former Civil Aviation Minister and NCP MP Praful Patel highlighted the need for developing more airports to decongest airports like Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai and Chennai.