The office of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), the body that regulates aviation in India, is housed in a bunch of stark old drab structures opposite the Safdarjung Airport in New Delhi. Even by the unfathomable methods of government offices in India, this particular office stands out as an absolute riddle. Inside, files vanish. Some reappear in dustbins. Documents immune to these calamities move from one desk to another at a pace that is an affront to the industry it oversees. But then the DGCA has always worked in mysterious ways. "It takes 20 days for some applications to reach the desk of an official, who can give an approval in two minutes," says Jayant Nadkarni, president of Business Aircraft Operators Association (BAOA), the umbrella body of private jet owners in India. Approvals are of course not given in two minutes. The aviation policy draft the government released last Friday, two days after India hopped to 130 in a World Bank's Ease of Doing Business ranking of 189 countries, completely ignores the rotten ways of the DGCA.

Two days before the policy was unveiled, the DGCA served yet another reminder of why it desperately needs an overhaul. With just a day's notice, it banned business jet operators and air charter companies from flying during the fourday India-Africa Forum Summit that began on October 26. Reason: security — a group of state heads was visiting. The ban did not cover scheduled airlines though.

The ban was unjust, complain charter operators because they go through the same processes and checks as their scheduled airline counterparts. Owing to the abrupt ban, operators scrambled to reschedule bookings with angry customers. Business was hit right at the onset of peak season. Even so, that long awaited aviation policy is an admirable piece of work. It packs many farsighted proposals, notably a move to connect remote regions by financing airlines and building no-frills airports.

The policy is also admirable because well, there is finally a policy. Creation of the draft happens to be the first serious action by the government at tackling some of the perennial problems plaguing aviation since it took office. The apathy of the government stems from its view of aviation as elitist, industry stakeholders say in unison. The government suffers from a perception myopia, according to Nadkarni. "It thinks business aviation is all about luxury and we need to tax these guys. But they forget business aviation is also a necessity."

The policy ignores a host of other vexing issues, however. It does not address the crushing taxes on aviation fuel. It also overlooks "the exorbitant and irrational" taxation on import of small aircraft. Taxes have crippled business aviation so much that there is actually a 2% decline in the number of business jets, says Nadkarni. "When there is GDP growth, aviation too should be growing. The opposite has happened in our case."

Still, the biggest omission of the policy is that it overlooks the functioning of the DGCA. The previous government proposed to create a new regulator replacing the DGCA, long hobbled by serious staff shortage, but that proposal is hanging fire. India is one of the world's fastest growing aviation markets, with passenger numbers rising 20% a year. The DGCA has failed to keep pace with this staggering growth; it harks back to an era when air travel was the privilege of the rich.

One of the many vexing irritants of charter companies is a rule called Extended Diversion Time Operations (EDTO) that makes it compulsory for an aircraft flying over water to be always within 60 minutes from an airfield. The rule is enforced as a safety precaution against engine failure, but overlooks the technological advancements of modern day engines. Due to this rule, while flying over water to lucrative destinations like Singapore, Dubai or Mauritius, charter operators are forced to make longer curved flight paths, often with kissing distances of coastlines, resulting in higher costs (because the aircraft is burning more fuel) and delays. The DGCA's counterparts in the US and EU have higher EDTO threshold limits, of 120 minutes and 180 minutes. Scheduled airlines too are vulnerable to the DGCA's inadequacies and awful methods.

Shyson Thomas, promoter of Air Pegasus, a regional airline launched in the south six months ago, says securing an air permit was a challenge.

The permit was delayed by six months and as Thomas waited for DGCA officers to inspect his plane, he was paying lessor fees and airport charges as it lay idle. When he finally received the permit, it cost him `6 crore. "Air permits in foreign countries take no more than 1-1.5 months." Another old grouse of airlines is the difficulty in hiring expat pilots due to a shortage of Indian pilots. "We discourage expats. There is a deadline, visa issues and so on," Aditya Ghosh, president of IndiGo, India's largest airline by passengers carried said in a recent interview.

"Have all that was committed before we launched operations happened? Not really," says Mittu Chandilya, MD and CEO, of AirAsia India. But Chandilya says things have significantly improved in recent months. "Now there is lots of transparency and some level of accountability." The head of another airline says the intent to do the right things and bring in market-driven processes can be seen now. "But things still get held up at the ground because of the vested interests long residing in DGCA."

Indeed, operators talk fondly of aviation minister Ashok Gajapati Raju, secretary RN Choubey and DGCA head M Sathiyavathy for their openness and flexibility. Recently, Vistara, an airline jointly owned by the Tatas and Singapore Airlines, was in a fix. It had commenced bookings on a new route and due to the delay in the delivery of one of its planes, it feared the registration of the plane by the DGCA too would be delayed. Sathiyavathy ensured the registration was done overnight.

Operators are also looking forward to the launch of an 'e-DGCA' project by the end of this fiscal to usher in transparency and speed. Some 162 items have been identified for online processing — majority of them concerning approvals by DGCA on flight safety procedures, training and licensing, engineering and flight operations, among others. Will that be enough?

Craig Jenks, president of Airline/Aircraft Projects Inc, a New York-based consultancy, says aviation policy in India seems basically to not get too far behind global benchmarks. "In this, you could say authorities have been successful. But there is a huge difference between not falling too far behind and excelling. I don't see any element of excelling and getting through red tape to make things happen."