The Communication, Navigation and Surveillance (CNS) wing of the Airports Authority Of India, which looks after the sensitive radar, communication and other navigational systems of the Air Traffic Services, is facing acute shortage of manpower.
"We are the men behind the machine who sustain the air traffic control (ATC) service infrastructure, which are the eye, ear and brain of the air traffic service, but we are short staffed by over 45 per cent against the sanctioned strength," a senior CNS official said.
CNS engineers and executives complained that they were being "utterly neglected" while the ATC officers were heard by the Airports Authority of India (AAI) management, under which both the ATC and the CNS function.
We feel "utterly neglected" by the management and also by the Civil Aviation Ministry, as new ATCOs have been recruited but no one has been recruited since last two years in our wing, he said.
Interestingly, the state-of-affair could be judged by the fact that an advertisement for recruitment of CNS executives was published in October 2007 and written test was conducted after one year in November 2008.
The result was declared in June last year while the interviews were held in August, but the final result is yet to be declared.
