Bhubaneswar: The Ministry of Civil aviation recently decided to restructure the Bureau of Civil Aviation and Security (BCAS) by opening more regional offices and the state will also get a regional office soon. This is being done to strengthen aviation safety in the country.
Currently, the aviation safety agency has eight regional offices. They are located at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi, Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport in Mumbai, Chennai International Airport in Chennai, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport at Kolkata and at Amritsar, Ahmedabad, Guwahati and Hyderabad. But, considering safety challenges the ministry has decided to open 11 more regional offices across the country.
BCAS Director General Kumar Rajesh Chandra recently informed Chief Secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi regarding this, and urged him to give directions to local authorities to facilitate the establishment of a new office in the state.
“Eleven new regional offices of BCAS would be established to handle aviation safety across the country. AAI has been requested to provide permanent offices and residential accommodation for its staffers. It is therefore necessary to give instructions to local authorities to extend assistance to the regional director to discharge his duties at the Biju Patnaik International Airport (BPIA),” Chandra said in his letter to Padhi.
Subsequently, the state government responded to the request and gave directions to the Director of BPIA. “I am directed to say that a new regional BCAS office will be established by the Government of India near BPIA. You are therefore requested to provide space for the permanent office,” said P K Biswal, Additional Secretary, General Administration and Public Grievance Department in his letter to the Director of BPIA.
The BPIA Director also confirmed that the new office will be established on airport premises. “We have received the direction for establishment of the BCAS regional office and it will be established soon,” confirmed BPIA Director S C Hota.
Sources said the new office of BCAS would function either from the AAI regional office building in Bhubaneswar or other office buildings of BPIA. The top officials of the ministry of civil aviation also informed this daily that BCAS is planning recruit more employees.
With BPIA among the top 20 busiest airports in the country recording a 27 per cent jump in passenger traffic in 2015-2016, the apex aviation safety agency has pointed out the importance of BPIA in the county’s aviation map through this decision.
POST NEWS NETWORK