India’s aviation regulator, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), is pressing the government for greater financial and administrative freedom to tackle serious resource constraints that threaten its ability to regulate a rapidly growing sector.
With key demands such as independent recruitment, competitive salaries, and enhanced training budgets, the DGCA argues that only autonomy can allow it to attract and retain the calibre of talent required for rigorous oversight.
At present, the DGCA has just 553 of its 1,063 technical positions filled — a vacancy rate approaching 50 percent. A parliamentary standing committee report has highlighted that this staffing shortfall is not merely a bureaucratic issue but an “existential threat” to aviation safety in India.
The committee has recommended a time-bound plan to grant the DGCA full administrative and financial autonomy.
The root of the problem lies in DGCA’s lack of control over recruitment and compensation. The report flagged the recruitment model — in which outside agencies hire on behalf of DGCA — as inefficient and slow, curbing the regulator’s ability to respond flexibly to workforce needs.
It also noted that deputation-based hiring, especially from services such as the Indian Air Force, has failed to attract qualified candidates because joining DGCA often comes with reduced benefits or allowances compared to their parent services.
Meanwhile, India’s aviation market continues to soar. Passenger traffic has more than doubled in recent years, reaching over 234 million annually, and the operational aircraft fleet has expanded over 100 percent to around 841 aircraft.
With more than 1,300 new firm aircraft orders in the pipeline, the regulatory burden is expected to intensify drastically. In this environment, the demand for more field-level inspections, certifications, safety audits, and oversight activities escalates sharply.
The parliamentary report urged that the DGCA be empowered to bypass bottlenecks in the Ministry of Civil Aviation’s oversight chain, allowing it to set salaries and hire specialists in aviation safety, airworthiness, operations, air traffic management, and related domains.
It also called for a national staffing audit, stronger enforcement mechanisms, a fatigue-risk management system for air traffic controllers (ATCs), and tighter timelines to rectify safety deficiencies.
Critics in Parliament and the civil aviation industry have warned that without reforms, the DGCA may increasingly struggle to keep pace with both growth and global standards. The committee’s recommendations arrived in the aftermath of the June 2025 crash of Air India flight AI‑171, which claimed 260 lives and revived concerns over systemic oversight inadequacies.
Supporters of the autonomy proposal argue that only by being able to recruit directly and set market‑competitive compensation can the DGCA become a modern, agile regulator. They also warn that further delay in granting autonomy may compound the backlog of inspections, safety audits, and infrastructure oversight tasks as air traffic and fleet size continue growing.
Nevertheless, the Civil Aviation Ministry has reportedly been cautious in embracing full autonomy for DGCA.
While it has indicated willingness to fill 190 vacancies by October, it has yet to agree to long-term structural reform that would vest DGCA with full recruitment powers.
In the weeks ahead, the challenge will be translating parliamentary recommendations into actionable legislation or administrative orders.
If autonomy is granted in a timely and meaningful manner, it could mark a turning point in India’s regulatory architecture — enabling more robust safety oversight and strengthening public confidence, even as aviation grows to unprecedented scale.
On the other hand, failure to act may expose the system to escalating risk, especially when regulatory demands are only going to intensify.
