The Air Traffic Controllers (ATCs) have objected to training facilities at Gondia in Maharashtra on account of “huge infrastructural deficiencies” that they say has made the life of both trainees and instructors “miserable” there.
The ATC guild, the organisation representing ATCs, has now written to the Airports Authority of India (AAI) management, urging it to boost infrastructure at Gondia. The ATC function comes under the purview of the AAI and all ATCs are AAI employees. The anguish of the ATCs, who have cast doubts on the infrastructure, is being viewed as a serious development, considering that the function of air traffic control is crucial to air-safety.
“It is worth mentioning that a training institute in a ‘hard station’ like Gondia with huge infrastructural deficiencies makes the life of trainees, instructors, visiting faculties, inspecting agencies, allied agencies etc. miserable and the very purpose of establishment of such an institute gets defeated,” the ATC guild has told the AAI, in a communication issued on Tuesday.
“National Institute of Aviation Training and Management (NIATAM), Gondia, was conceived in 2006 which has taken shape in 2010. ...All of a sudden, the institute was made operational on August 16, 2010, ...the operationalisation of NIATAM was unplanned and haphazard,” the ATC guild stated in the communication.
“...NIATAM, Gondia, is not a suitable place for an ATC training centre due to its infrastructural deficiencies”, the ATC guild said. It also noted that the ATC training facilities at Allahabad and Hyderabad were not able to meet the capacity requirement which was why the training centre at Gondia was established but added that “initially it was expected to run only one or two batches of ATCOs at this place (Gondia)”.
“The semi-finished buildings of the institute started functioning ... with construction works going on all around,” the ATC guild pointed out.