India gets best-ever aviation safety rank

What’s in today’s article?

• Why in News?
• About the ranking
• About ICAO
• About DGCA

Why in News?

• Recently, the United Nations aviation arm – International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), has ranked Indian aviation safety oversight mechanism at the 48th spot – a quantum leap from its 102nd rank four years ago.

About the ranking:

• H2: Background:
  • The ICAO had earlier audited the Indian Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to check its effective implementation of critical safety elements under the Universal Safety Oversight Audit Programme (USOAP).
  • Following that, the UN aviation arm has given the DGCA its highest ever EI score, putting India on the 48th spot, above that of countries like China (49), Israel (50), Turkey (54), Denmark (55) and Poland (60).
  • Top five score countries: Singapore, UAE, South Korea, France and Iceland. US is at 22nd place and Qatar is at 25th place.
• H2: Effective Implementation scores are given for eight areas:
  • These are legislation, organisation, personal licensing, operations, airworthiness, aerodromes, aircraft accident and investigation.
    • ICAO audited the first six critical areas in India during the audit.
• H2: Significance of India getting its best ranking:
  • It will make it easier for Indian carriers to expand their wings abroad, because countries with poor aviation safety records find their aircraft being subjected to more surprise checks at airports abroad.

About the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO):

• It is a specialized agency (headquarters – Montreal, Canada) of the UN that coordinates the principles and techniques of international air navigation.
• It was established in 1947 under the Chicago Convention (1944) and is funded and directed by 193 national governments (signatories of the convention).
• It fosters the planning and development of international air transport to ensure safe and orderly growth and to support diplomacy and cooperation among signatories in air transport
• Its core function is –
  • To maintain an administrative and expert bureaucracy (the ICAO Secretariat) supporting these diplomatic interactions,
  • To research new air transport policy and standardization innovations as directed and endorsed by governments through the ICAO Assembly or the ICAO Council which the assembly elects.
• ICAO is distinct from other international air transport organisations (like IATA, CANSO), particularly because it alone is vested with international authority (among signatory states).

About the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA):

• The DGCA is the regulatory body of the Government of India in the field of Civil Aviation, primarily dealing with safety issues.
• It became a statutory body under the Aircraft (Amendment) Act, 2020 and is responsible for regulation of air transport services to/from/within India and for enforcement of civil air regulations, air safety and airworthiness standards.
• The DGCA also co-ordinates all regulatory functions with the ICAO. The Government of India is planning to replace the organization with a Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), modelled on the lines of the American Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

Q1) How many countries signed the Chicago Convention?

Chicago Convention haS 193 countries which are members of the UN except Liechtenstein. The Cook Islands is also a member of the Convention despite not being a UN member. This convention covers Liechtenstein on the basis of the ratification of Switzerland.

Q2) How many DGCA offices are there in India?

The headquarters are located in New Delhi with regional offices in the various parts of India. There are 14 (fourteen) Regional Airworthiness Offices located at Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Trivandrum, Bhopal, Lucknow, Patna, Bhubaneshwar, Kanpur, Guwahati and Patiala.