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ICAO won't audit India in 2014



 The International Civil Aviation Organisation -ICAO said it will not be auditing India in 2014, which would mean the country's low rating with the UN agency will continue for at least another year and half even if the civil aviation ministry manages to hire enough officers to inspect flight operations and train its staff by March.After its most recent audit — completed on December 31, 2012 — the ICAO rated India's Directorate General of Civil Aviation 57.1 per cent for complying with its standards, well below the global average of 63.5 per cent.''India has so far undertaken mitigation measures to resolve the safety deficiencies identified by the ICAO, but we will be continuing to monitor the progress to ensure these measures are effective," ICAO spokesman Anthony Philbin said in an email to ET, responding to questions after the US downgraded India's aviation safety rating.
''With regard to a further audit, there is nothing planned over 2014 and our 2015 schedule has not yet been confirmed." The ICAO monitors India's aviation safety oversight capabilities through ICAO Coordinated Validation Missions (ICVM) and two such missions had come to India in 2013.
"The ICVMs help us validate progress made by the member states in resolving any safety deficiencies identified during the ICAO Universal Safety Oversight Audit Programme visits," Philbin said.
Typically, global aviation regulators assess a country's aviation safety going by ICAO's ratings. India's bilateral air services agreements allow regulators of other countries to carry out a safety audit in India.
The same right is accorded to India's DGCA as well. On Friday, the US Federal Aviation Administration, which carries out safety audits to assess whether a country is compliant with ICAO's standards, cut India's aviation safety to category II.
The downgrade means Indian carriers will have to undergo increased checks at US airports. After the US downgrade, Aviation Minister Ajit Singh said that 95 per cent of the issues raised by the US had been resolved by India.
The minister added that the DGCA would be hiring 75 flight operations inspectors trained for specific aircraft models and also train its airworthiness officers to carry out checks on aircraft models used by nonscheduled carriers by March 2014.

 

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