Those deadly skies

Whatever the cause of the Alliance Air crash in Patna, and officials seemedon Monday to hint at pilot error, this tragic accident yet agai...

Whatever the cause of the Alliance Air crash in Patna, and officials seemedon Monday to hint at pilot error, this tragic accident yet again highlightsIndian skies8217; dubious distinction as among the unsafest in the world. Forthe generally creaking and decrepit state of the entire civil aviationinfrastructure, squarely blame that white elephant in New Delhi, the civilaviation ministry.

This office, for long years now and even more shamelessly than its othercounterparts, has spent too much of its time being preoccupied withpreserving its privileges and not nearly enough attending to basic issueseven of safety, leave alone efficiency. Remember how this ministry only acouple of years ago was spending all its considerable and destructiveenergies keeping foreign airlines from investing in domestic airlines? Theconnection may seem far-fetched and may not have anything to do with thecause of the accident, but the aircraft that crashed in Patna was 20 yearsold.

The point is that for a fleet to be modernised, the entire operations needto be efficient and need enough capital, a point that it has taken thisillustrious ministry forever to recognise and acknowledge. And now that ithas done so under a government more friendly to a liberal economic regimethan its predecessors, it appears to be in no great hurry to make sure thathuman lives at least are safe.

The crash comes on the heels of the report only two days ago of thegovernment committee set up after the December hijacking of an IA aircraft.The report only said what is public knowledge, but it bears repeating. Afterstudying 16 airports across the country, it announced that Indian airportsare ill-run, ill-managed, technically ill-equipped, and have poor securityand safety systems. Several of them lack baggage X-ray machines,jeopardising security. The Airports Authority of India is doing a poor job,it suggested, and urged corporatisation. For their part, travellers knowthat they cannot expect phones at airports to work, nor be surprised ifflights are grounded because of surprise baggage on board: rodents.

None of this is new, and the government is apparently engaged in admittedlydifficult corporatisation and privatisation exercises for many airports.

Indians have long lived with poor facilities and creaking infrastructure andcan conceivably await large-scale reform for the general infrastructure toimprove. But must security and flight safety be held hostage to delays inthis process? If only some of the national pride that the main partner inthis government seeks to instill in the citizens of this country could beredirected to constructive things such as ensuring that Indian airports,airlines and aircraft were not a matter of shame for this country, a tadmore urgency might be visible.

Civil aviation, like only a handful of other sectors such as telecoms andinformation technology, is a crucial link in helping a modernising economyleapfrog into the global economy. Urgent and disproportionate attention toit can yield fast and disproportionately high rewards. If this is beyond theunderstanding of the dilapidated ministry in charge, let it be superseded bysome more competent and focused body.