Exclusive! Safety and Manpower- would DGCA have fared different?
Neelam Mathews March 15, 2013 As news broke that India had been put under the ICAO ‘Significant Safety Concerns’ (SSCs) list for lack of adherence to proper licen s ing practices and airworthiness following I CAO s Continuous Monitoring Approach (CMA), (akin to an audit), conducted end- December last year, there was pandemonium. Today, DGCA Arun Misra confirmed: "ICAO has not made the draft report available to us ....., so there is no question of misleading the Parliament on the issue." He added; "ICAO makes the draft report available after 90 days of audit, "which will be March-end, after which we are given 45 days for comments on the draft report. Then the report is finalized by ICAO." ICAO, stringent on physical surveillance of safety, will be a tough customer to satisfy. So, what we might be overlooking, is that the DGCA has its hands tied because of lack of manpower. “(The process of recruitment (is complicated)) because it has to follow...