No fly zones

The revelation that just five of the country's 126 airports have operating licences (including the three that are in private hands), should open eyes to the state of regulation in the aviation sector. There is the directorate-general of civil aviation, which is supposed to oversee the functioning of the Airports Authority of India (AAI), which operates the airports. There is the civil aviation ministry, which has had a succession of high-profile ministers, and which is a prized posting for civil servants because of the prospects that it opens up for international travel. And above all of them, there are the parliamentary oversight committees. That none of these has looked into this scandalous state of affairs tells us that the governance failures that everyone talks about are not just in Bihar or Jharkhand, and not just when it comes to public health or primary education; such failures are everywhere.

It is relevant to recall that, when privatising some of the hotels belonging to the India Tourism Development Corporation, the then disinvestment minister Arun Shourie discovered to his horror that even the title deeds of the land on which ITDC's flagship Ashok Hotel in Delhi is built, were not with the hotel's management""or with anyone else. To top this, there was major encroachment on the hotel's premises that the management was either unaware of, or chose to do nothing about. The governance failures extend further afield: for instance, there is no shortage of state-owned undertakings which are several years behind schedule on mandatory matters like preparing and filing their annual accounts; some also default on statutory dues like provident fund deposits""but no chief executive is ever penalised for these lapses.

It is true, as the report in this newspaper that highlighted the state of affairs at airports pointed out, that getting a licence may not be difficult for the airports, and the issues may be more procedural than substantive. But then again, that may not be the case because no one is the wiser. A defence ministry clearance is required, for instance, to ensure that the airport's approach and take-off corridors do not clash with those of the air force. Then, clearances are required from the ministry of environment and forests, none of which appears particularly problematic, though they might be time-consuming. What should cause concern are not such specifics but the prospect that, since these airports do not have licences, there is no way for the public to be sure that other safety procedures have been complied with.

The AAI has been in no better condition than the airports it operates. At one point, it did not even have a full board of directors, and all decisions were being taken by the chairman, who oversaw the functions of other members as well. When it came to the privatisation of the Delhi and Mumbai airports (which is when they got their licences), it was the Planning Commission that pointed out the various problems in the process, not the AAI. If more airports are going to be privatised, either fully or through public-private partnership models, the AAI will need a proper revamp. The airports themselves should be subjected to clear deadlines for getting the required licences, and shut down if they fail to get them. One suspects, however, that even now the Indian state is too "soft" to take such firm action, even when it concerns the safety of air passengers.