After heat over fake pilots, DGCA seat turns too hot to fill

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has been in news for all the wrong reasons of late, after it was discovered that large-scale nepotism within the regulator’s office was leading to a number of ‘fake’ pilots taking to the skies.

No wonder the government has not received a single application from eligible candidates for the post of director general in the last two months.

The position had come up for renewal since the current incumbent, EK Bharatbhushan, lacks the mandatory 12-year aviation experience needed for the job and the government wanted an aviation professional to head DGCA, instead of an IAS officer, as has been the norm so far.

None of Bharatbhushan’s immediate juniors qualifies for the job as per the new criteria, which require 12 years of aviation, flying, aircraft, engineering or airworthiness experience. But what Bharatbhushan lacks in experience, he has more than made up with his sincerity in tackling the entire fake pilot scam.

Officials in the Ministry of Civil Aviation confirmed that not a single application has been received for the director general’s post and now the ministry has written to the Union Public Service Commission to relax the appointment criteria.

“We have sought a one-time relaxation to allow Bharatbhushan to continue in this critical role since he had handled the job quite well. We have also sought a six-month extension of his tenure, till the government takes a call on relaxing criteria for his post,” ministry officials said.

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 five 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 process as well as airlines to get their wards employed as pilots without having cleared mandatory pilot training exams.

Recently, the director general asked some of his key officials to desist from dealing in matters relating to the airlines where their children were employed in any position. He also relieved air safety director R S Passi of his portfolio, pending investigation against him on charges of nepotism. Also, Bharatbhushan has fast-tracked the process of recruiting 114 professionals for key safety and training posts within the DGCA on a short-term contract basis.

Apart from being the director general, Bharatbhushan is also the financial advisor and additional secretary to the Ministry of Civil Aviation and assumed charge in November last year. He has briefly served as the chairman and managing director of Air India and continues to serve on the airline’s board of directors as one of the two government nominees.