Indian MPs have raised alarm over staff shortages at the air safety regulator, describing it as an “existential threat” to flight safety systems in the country.
The parliamentary committee was tasked with reviewing the workings of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) after the devastating crash of an Air India plane that killed 260 people in June, the world's worst aviation disaster for a decade.
The committee warned that the regulator was grappling "with a profound and persistent shortage of technical and regulatory personnel," with almost half of its posts unfilled.
Staffing shortages at the DGCA were "an existential threat to the integrity of India's aviation safety system," said the transport, tourism and culture committee report that also followed several helicopter accidents in northern India.
Days before the Ahmedabad crash in June, prime minister Narendra Modi had spoken about how India is banking on its booming aviation sector to support wider development goals.
Wednesday’s report warned that the rapid pace at which new aircraft are being acquired by India’s airlines, outpacing the development of airport infrastructure, is straining facilities to their limits, compromising service quality and narrowing safety margins.
“This deficit is not a mere administrative statistic; it is a critical vulnerability that exists at the very heart of India’s safety oversight system, occurring precisely at a time when the sector’s unprecedented growth demands more, not less, regulatory vigilance and capacity,” the report warned.
It said the root of the crisis lay in an outdated recruitment model under which an agency hires personnel on behalf of the DGCA. It said the civil aviation ministry, which houses the regulator, had described the process as “slow and inflexible”, and that the DGCA struggles to attract and retain highly skilled professionals as a result.
Civil aviation minister Ram Mohan Naidu told lawmakers last month that the government would fill 190 of the more than 500 unfilled positions in the DGCA by October.
The parliamentary committee recommended launching a focused recruitment campaign and suggested a new regulatory authority could be created to replace the DGCA.
The committee also said India's air traffic controllers were under immense pressure due to staffing shortages caused by failures in workforce planning. Some air traffic controllers were not adequately trained, the committee added.
The report criticised the Airports Authority of India and the DGCA for a "deeply troubling practice" of not following duty time limitations for the controllers, saying that raised the risk of fatigue and increased the chances of a controller error.
Pointing to recent helicopter crashes, the committee proposed a unified national regulatory framework for all state-operated services, supported by mandatory pilot training tailored to specific terrains.
It noted that fragmented state-level oversight has led to “unacceptable safety gaps” in high-risk areas and urged stronger central intervention.
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