Arun Mishra, who took over as the head of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Thursday, said his main priority was to improve safety culture in airlines and airports and to make the pilot licensing system more stringent, to check fraudulent practices.
Mishra, an IAS officer of the West Bengal cadre, takes charge after his predecessor, E K Bharat Bhushan, was unceremoniously shunted out of the post. Mishra replaces Prashant Sukul, who held temporary charge as director general for a few days. Sukul heads to the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) in Montreal, while K N Srivastava will take charge as new civil aviation secretary in August.
Mishra offered no comment when asked about his views on non-payment of salaries by airlines and whether it constituted a safety issue.
“ICAO lays down certain minimum safety standards. Our goal will be to do better than that,” he said.
Mishra served as India's permanent representative at ICAO. The latter will be carrying out an audit of DGCA in December and Mishra will have to push for filling vacant posts in the organisation.
Mishra also said a committee of secretaries was looking into modifying archaic sections in the eight-decade-old Aircraft Act and Rules and certain outdated DGCA regulations.