With Acute Staff Shortage, No Freedom, Is DGCA A Toothless Tiger?
The watchdog that regulates and keeps an eye on entire aviation ecosystem of the country – from runways, planes, air traffic control, airports to pilots and passengers – has no power, no money, and no independence to run as professionally as it should be like the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) of the United States of America and others do
New Delhi: The IndiGo crisis, which hit the aviation sector hard in early December, has once again brought the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) into the eye of the storm.
The watchdog that regulates and keeps an eye on entire aviation ecosystem of the country – from runways, planes, air traffic control, airports to pilots and passengers – has no power, no money, and no independence to run as professionally as it should be like the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) of the United States of America and others do.
The DGCA, under the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA), is dependent on the ministry for orders on every big and small decision.
Worst is that the watchdog functions with just 553 odd staff. These are the ones who apart from daily functioning also firefight situations like air crashes, traffic congestions, air traffic control spoofing and the recent IndiGo situation. Working with just about 50 per cent of the staff against its sanctioned strength of 1,630, and lack of technical experts on its pay rolls right from the top, the DGCA is ill equipped to handle delicate situations in aviation.
“DGCA is presently over loaded with increasing work of safety-oversight, under staffed, under equipped and is lagging behind in its capacity and capabilities as a safety regulator and hence may compromise on safety of the traveling public, if not restructured and strengthened at the earliest,” the Parliamentary panel headed by JD (U)’s Sanjay Jha said in its report in August 2025.
The DGCA had 794 unfilled vacancies till November 30, 2025, against its sanctioned strength of 1,630. MoCA minister K. Ram Mohan Naidu says by the year end they will be able to hire 190. But there is still a lot of gap. Much of DGCA work is done by consultants hired for short durations, some times borrowed from other organizations, instead of proper appointments of technical experts who can be made answerable for lapses.
The DGCA website in September posted vacancies for consultants to work on one year contract in airworthiness, air safety areas. Besides, there were 10 vacancies advertised for Deputy Director of Operations and 26 for Assistant Directors airworthiness, and so on. There are crucial vacancies which should have been filled in time.
Sources pointed out that lack of autonomy and financial freedom impedes DGCA’s ability to attract talent as a result several vacancies requiring expertise remain “chronically unfilled.” A parliamentary panel even noted that DGCA cannot hire even a casual employee in case of urgency without going through the ministry.
Another panel noted that unlike its international counterparts, the DGCA remains entirely dependent on government allocations and procedural controls, making it impossible to attract and retain the highly skilled professionals like experienced pilots, airworthiness inspectors, and flight operations specialists who are essential for conducting surveillance of the private aviation industry.
The parliamentary panels have also noted that the root of the DGCA's staffing crisis lies in a recruitment model that is not matching for a modern, specialized technical regulator. MoCA itself agrees that a significant number of vacancies are pending recruitment through the Union Public Service Commission which is a "slow and inflexible," process resulting in huge delays in filling critical regulatory positions that require niche expertise. But the ministry has no plans to bypass this system.
“There is no autonomy, no authority, and there are too many bureaucratic hindrances. Yet, whenever there is a crisis, the first blame comes to the DGCA. With this kind of functioning, people either lose interest or get tired,” said a source familiar with the functioning of the DGCA. There are also allegations of political interference in day-to- day functioning of the DGCA.
Interestingly, when IAS officer Naseem Zaidi moved as Civil Aviation Secretary in the ministry after having served as the Director General of Civil Aviation, he initiated the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) Bill in 2013 to give autonomy to the DGCA. People in the sector say that having served as the DGCA, Zaidi knew the problems of the body which is why he initiated the law to break free the regulatory body from government’s daily control and make it an independent body on the lines of the FAA. However, the bill lapsed with the fall of the UPA government and the present NDA government has not shown any inclination to revive it in the last 12 years.
The joke in the sector is that if DGCA is made independent then the MoCA will have no work to do and it would not be able to wield power on the airlines, particularly ever since Air India moved out of its control.
“The challenge is that you are the world's third largest domestic aviation market, fifth largest global market, yet you have no proper machinery, system and structure. These issues of autonomy come to the fore during a crisis and then go back. Your aviation sector has grown multiple folds with so many aircraft, passengers, airports. Now it is time to have an independent board, like SEBI and RBI. Have domain experts for quick decision making. The current DGCA needs major overhauling,” said sources in MoCA.
A set of questions sent to MoCA on the questions of staff shortage and autonomy to DGCA remain unanswered.
