Union Civil Aviation Minister Ajith Singh has said that plans are afoot to undertake a major revamp of the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), the apex aviation watchdog in the country.
Singh, who addressed journalists following a meeting of the Constitutive Committee of Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) held here, said the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) Bill meant for giving more autonomy to the DGCA would be tabled in the winter session of Parliament.
According to him, the DGCA needed the revamp as the aviation sector was witnessing rapid changes and the CAA would carry out inspections on a comprehensive scale.
”There are a lot of changes required in the regulation regime”, the minister said and added that the CAA would have more autonomy and financial independence.
On Kingfisher, Singh said the government could not exercise the option of bailing out a private airline and that it was up to the airline to bring in fresh fund infusion. And he added that this was the plight of the aviation sector as a whole. Speaking on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the aviation sector, he said that there was going to be no change in the 49 per cent cap, but efforts were being made to incorporate changes to allow other airlines to invest, an option which was not there earlier.
“It (civil aviation) is a highly capital intensive industry and we have to pay attention to cut operations cost of the airlines as they are not getting working capital”, he said and also pointed out that banks were not willing to lend more money to private airlines.