Ajit Singh relieves DGCA of charge, another stopgap found

New Delhi: In a sudden move, Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh has relieved Director General of Civil Aviation EK Bharatbhushan of his duties a few hours back.

Bharatbhushan was holding additional charge as DGCA and official sources confirmed that the minister exercised his prerogative in taking away this charge a few hour ago on Tuesday.

Earlier in the day, Bharatbhushan had spoken to Firstpost about the need to take some action against Kingfisher Airlines, which is in a critical financial state and has been unable to present a recovery plan to the regulator despite several promises.

Ministry sources said that Bharatbhushan would now revert to the ministry as Additional Secretary and Financial Advisor.

Joint Secretary Prashant Sukul will look after DGCA till a new appointment is made. These sources said there was no connection between Bharatbhushan’s removal and the situation at Kingfisher. They also said that the DGCA had not submitted any report to the ministry on Kingfisher having broken any rules or if any action should be taken against the airline for not presenting DGCA with a recovery plan.

As Firstpost had reported on 20 June, Singh has zeroed in on Arun Mishra, India’s representative at the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) in Montreal to succeed Bharatbhushan. His name has been recommended to the Cabinet Committee on Appointments (ACC). Now that the office of the DGCA is virtually headless, Mishra’s appointment is being expedited. The official sources confirmed that once ACC approval is received, Mishra will assume charge within a few weeks.

Mishra was handpicked as the next DGCA by the minister earlier after a long search to find an experienced hand who would meet the criteria laid down by the UPSC was unsuccessful (which means at least 12 years hands-on experience as an aviation professional). So once again, a bureaucrat and not an aviation professional will be heading the critical function of aviation regulator.Mishra was earlier a joint secretary in the aviation ministry.

The search for a suitable DGCA has been on for more than 18 months. Large-scale favouritism within the regulator’s office, leading to a number of ‘fake’ pilots taking to the skies, has already severely dented the image of this office. The government could not narrow down on suitable candidates for long, prompting it to once again select a bureaucrat.

Though Bharatbhushan was also a bureaucrat, he more than made up for his lack of aviation experience by effectively tackling the entire fake pilot scam. Ministry officials had said earlier that a one-time relaxation was granted for Bharatbhushan to continue in this critical role since he had handled the job quite well. But now, Mishra will take over. The same procedure had been followed for Bharatbhushan’s predecessor, Nasim Zaidi, and the criteria were actually reversed for him to continue to hold this post. He had 12 years of administrative experience and about 5 years of experience in aviation.

It is pertinent to note here that since the first ‘fake’ pilot was detected by Bharatbhushan, he has announced many measures to cleanse DGCA of nepotism - since senior DGCA officials have been accused of colluding with pilot testing processes as well as airlines to get their wards employed as pilots without having cleared mandatory pilot training exams.

Last year, the DG asked some of his key officials to desist from dealing with matters relating to those airlines where their children were employed in any position. He had also fast-tracked the process of recruiting 114 professionals for key safety and training posts within DGCA on a short-term contract basis.

Earlier this year, Bharatbhushan was also instrumental in pulling up wayward Kingfisher Airlines when it was cancelling flights on a large scale due to severe financial strain. He ensured that a daily safety surveillance was mounted on the airline and that its pilots and other staff were not harassed despite the airline’s precarious financial health.

The DGCA’s office is in-charge of regulatory issues pertaining to aviation safety, efficiency and continuity of air transport, including formulation of air law framework.