New Delhi: With air traffic in India on the
rise again after a year of lull, the government has initiated
a series of measures to strengthen the Directorate General of
Civil Aviation (DGCA) and give it more teeth.
While there has been a long-pending demand for segregation
of DGCA`s supervisory and regulatory roles, the unprecedented
growth in air traffic for the past six years has made the
government to give high priority to strengthening its
regulatory mechanism, official sources said here today.
As per official figures, aircraft movements have risen
from 7,17,597 in 2004-05 to 13,06,532 in 2008-09 and total
passenger traffic from 37 million to 69 million.
Asked whether there was any move to bifurcate DGCA, they
said there was "no such proposal or thinking at present. But
we have already initiated steps to strengthen all aspects of
DGCA and its activities".
At a meeting last week, DGCA got feedback from
stakeholders on a proposal to create a Civil Aviation
Authority.
A feasibility study to set up such an authority within the
DGCA was commissioned last October in technical cooperation
with the UN-body International Civil Aviation Organisation.
The idea of the setting up the Authority is to improve
financial and administrative autonomy to discharge safety
oversight functions more effectively, the sources said.
PTI
