DGCA Cracks A Whip On State Govts Over Air Safety Issues

Faiz Ahmed Kidwai, Director General of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has finally cracked a whip on several state governments to comply with airport safety measures which is often taken for granted, particularly one relating to the bird-hit menace. In 2024, bird hit cases in the country rose to 1,278 cases compared to 528 cases in 2019. DGCA’s new resolve is to strengthen India’s respective airport director’s repeated safety warnings often taken casually by most state governments. DGCA now wants to regulate critical safety measures to eliminate bird hit possibilities in and around the airports. DGCA has requested all state Chief Secretaries to ensure strict time bound enforcement of rules which prohibits activities that attract birds and animals. To ensure “real compliance” Kidwai has asked respective Chief Secretaries to set up a compliance monitoring mechanism and send him quarterly reports. This means Odisha and other states will now have to seriously start mapping and take actions on unauthorised slaughter houses, meat shops, dairies, garbage dumps, tree pruning, lamp post removal obstructing flight path and unauthorised civil constructions next to the airport in and around 10 km radius of the airport. For Odisha, DGCA’s intervention is rather God sent because for long this issue was never addressed seriously. Sources say, the recent DGCA initiative to institutionalise a compliance monitoring mechanism with quarterly reports to DGCA is now having a cascading effect on respective state’s chief secretaries, commissioners and district collectors.