PRICE OF HUMAN LIFE

Unless there is a fundamental change in approach that places a premium on accountability above all else, we will simply lurch from one disaster to the next

- Rajdeep Sardesai

It was meant to be a week when the Narendra Modi led NDA government would celebrate its 11th year in power with the signature ‘band, baaja, barat’ media hype that has been its forte.

And yet, for once, even the astute headline management skills of the government's cheerleaders couldn’t detract from the awfulness of the breaking news in the second week of June: at least 270 people dead in the worst civil aviation disaster in this country since two planes collided in mid-air in 1996. That the Air India flight 171 crashed just outside Ahmedabad in Gujarat, the home state of the government’s Big Two, perhaps makes the tragedy even more poignant.

While it is premature to speculate over the causes of the crash — various aviation ‘experts’ in TV studios have proffered different theories — the crash has triggered a renewed debate over air safety. While official data suggests India’s safety track record is at par with global standards, there are enough reasons for concern.

Just to give a context. A parliamentary standing committee report on the Ministry of Civil Aviation in March this year pointed out that the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) was operating with 53% of its sanctioned posts vacant while the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security has a vacancy rate of 35%. The government’s ambitious UDAN scheme aims to connect 120 new destinations but its budget has been slashed by 82%. While the number of airports has nearly doubled in the last decade, the amount being spent on maintaining safety standards lags behind. Which raises a big question: will a horrific air crash change anything on the ground? The black box and flight data recorder may provide more clues as to what happened for a Dreamliner plane to explode into a fireball just seconds after take-off but will the inquiry be fair and transparent in revealing the truth given the mighty stakeholders involved?