AA Edit | No Funds, No Staff: DGCA a Toothless Watchdog

The IndiGo crisis that paralysed India’s aviation network in early December has once again pushed the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) into an intense public scrutiny. Whenever turbulence hits the aviation sector — be it mass flight cancellations, air safety concerns or air traffic disruptions — the DGCA is expected to step in decisively. However, the uncomfortable truth is that the aviation watchdog is structurally ill-equipped to perform the role that people expect of it.

The DGCA oversees everything from aircraft certification and airworthiness to pilot licensing, airports, air traffic control and passenger safety in one of the fastest growing aviation markets in the world. This responsibility is comparable to that handled by aviation regulators in the United States, Europe and China. However, these regulators enjoy statutory autonomy, financial independence and deep technical capacity, while the DGCA operates as a subordinate office of the civil aviation ministry. The result is DGCA turning into a watchdog without teeth.

The DGCA has no independent budget, no autonomy to hire staff and no freedom to design a modern regulatory structure. Every major decision on staffing, enforcement, procurement or rule implementation requires approval from the ministry, slowing responses in a sector where speed and expertise matter the most.

The DGCA currently has merely 553 personnel against a sanctioned strength of 1,630. Nearly half its posts, or 794, are vacant as of November 30, 2025. The aviation regulator is expected to regulate thousands of daily flights, hundreds of aircraft, dozens of airports and millions of passengers with skeletal numbers.

Compared to this, the US FAA employs over 45,000 professionals with a dedicated funding stream through aviation user fees. Singapore’s CAAS operates with industry-linked pay scales and technical specialists. Dubai’s GCAA and Europe’s EASA attract top global talent by offering autonomy, accountability, and competitive compensation.

The DGCA, however, relies on short-term consultants, borrowed officers and contractual hires to plug critical gaps in air safety and airworthiness oversight. Despite parliamentary panels expressing concern over the DGCA’s powerless state, no reforms were undertaken in the relationship between the civil aviation ministry and the DGCA. This reluctance is attributed to the unwillingness of the ministry officials to relinquish control over the aviation sector.

An attempt, however, was made in 2013 to strengthen this anomaly in the organisation that has to regulate the world’s fifth-largest aviation market. The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) Bill was introduced to grant statutory independence to DGCA on the lines of the FAA. However, the bill lapsed with the fall of the UPA government. The current government must consider introducing necessary reforms in DGCA.

An independent, well-funded aviation regulator with domain experts, accountability and operational freedom — similar to RBI, Sebi or the IRDAI — is no longer optional. It is a prerequisite for safety in the Indian sky, that is only getting busier by every day. Until the government unfetters DGCA, every aviation crisis will expose the same uncomfortable reality: A regulator expected to fly high, but forced to operate with clipped wings.