BackGovt goes on hiring spree ahead of air safety audit
Aviation ministry wants to fill vacancies at the Air Accident Investigation Bureau before UN aviation watchdog ICAO's audit of India's air safety readiness in March
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New Delhi: The civil aviation ministry plans to hire more than a dozen officers including a new head for its Air Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) five months before a key international safety audit is expected to take place.
“It has finally advertised these positions, including DG (director general) ahead of ICAO audit," said a government official who asked not to be named.
The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the United Nations’ aviation watchdog, will conduct an audit of India’s air safety readiness around March and the aviation ministry wants to complete staffing the bureau before the audit team arrives.
The outcome of the audit will be critical for India as it could affect international expansion plans of new as well as old Indian airlines.
AAIB was formed in May 2012, but while the idea was to make it independent of the civil aviation ministry, that hasn’t happened and it is still staffed by officials of the ministry.
Interestingly, ahead of an earlier audit by ICAO in 2015, the ministry had sought to find people for AIIB though nothing much came of the plan.
According to the ministry’s advertisement, to qualify for the post of director general of AAIB, an applicant should hold a degree in engineering and have about a decade-and-a-half of experience in areas such as air safety and air traffic control. The salary scale starts at Rs37,400 per month.
Significantly, the post has been opened up for senior pilots for the first time.
Besides the director general, the ministry plans to hire 16 others as directors, deputy directors and accident investigation officers. The upper age limit has been set at 56 and all appointments will be for a period of five years. The last date for submitting applications is 7 December.
An aviation expert said he does not see AAIB getting qualified people. “Somebody who is an active pilot, who has been in an airline job, would be earning much more than that. Why should he give that up and come for a Rs37,400 job?" asked Mohan Ranganathan, a Chennai-based air safety analyst and a former member of the ministry-appointed air safety council.
Pilot salaries start at Rs2 lakh a month and rise to Rs5 lakh or more for those with 15 years of experience.
“Nobody is going to come. So, what will happen is the accident investigation board will be filled with people with zero operational experience," he added.
ICAO, of which India is a member, completed an audit of aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) in 2012 and placed the country in its list of 13 worst-performing nations.
This triggered an audit by US aviation regulator, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), in 2014, which downgraded India’s ranking, citing lack of adequate regulatory oversight.
Indian airlines were not allowed to add new routes to the US or sign commercial pacts with US airlines during this period. The ratings were restored last year. But India’s regulatory oversight on safety has remained under the scanner.
The government told visiting ICAO and FAA teams in December that it would create a new and stronger aviation regulator to be called the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). But minister of state for civil aviation, Jayant Sinha, told Parliament in July that a civil aviation authority was not required for now.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation is also currently without a director general. Balwinder Singh Bhullar, an officer from the aviation ministry, holds additional charge of DGCA.
Earlier this month, several aviation ministry officials including Bhullar attended an ICAO annual summit in Montreal, Canada. A government official familiar with the development said on condition of anonymity that many of the foreign delegates wanted to talk about air safety issues in India.
“But the talking points of some of the ministry officials were centered around how they have introduced a new regional aviation policy," the official said, “That’s not what ICAO wanted to hear."
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