Air India tragedy exposes fatal funding gaps, Parliament warned weeks before crash

The deadly Air India crash in Ahmedabad has cast a harsh spotlight on glaring lapses in aviation safety funding that were flagged by Parliament just weeks before the disaster.

A March report by the Parliament Standing Committee on Tourism, Transport and Culture had warned that India’s aviation watchdogs were critically underfunded and understaffed, even as the country’s booming aviation sector strained existing infrastructure and oversight mechanisms.

Presented to the Rajya Sabha on March 25, 2025, the committee’s report pointed to a "distinct imbalance" in budgetary allocations for key aviation bodies. For the financial year 2025-26, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) was allotted ₹30 crore — nearly half of the total aviation safety budget. In contrast, the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB), tasked with probing crashes like the recent Air India disaster, was given just ₹20 crore. The Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS), responsible for airport security, received an even smaller sum of ₹15 crore.

The AAIB is now investigating the June 12 crash of Air India flight AI 171, a London-bound Boeing 787 Dreamliner that slammed into a medical college campus shortly after takeoff from Ahmedabad. The inferno killed all but one of the 242 passengers and crew on board, along with 29 people on the ground — including five medical students.

The committee’s report had stressed that India’s rapid aviation expansion — from 74 airports in 2014 to 147 in 2022, with a target of 220 by 2025 — was dangerously outpacing investments in safety infrastructure. “It is imperative to assess whether these funds are adequate to strengthen security infrastructure and enhance investigative capabilities,” the report stated, especially as the government pushes to connect Tier II and Tier III cities under its UDAN scheme.

Equally alarming was the chronic understaffing flagged across India’s aviation ecosystem. Over 53% of sanctioned positions at the DGCA remain vacant, while BCAS suffers a 35% shortfall. The Airports Authority of India (AAI), which oversees airport infrastructure, reported 17% vacancies.

The committee called for urgent corrective measures, warning that regulatory compliance alone cannot ensure passenger safety if accident investigation and security agencies remain critically under-resourced.

Now, with the charred wreckage of AI 171 serving as a grim backdrop, those warnings have taken on tragic new urgency.