DGCA enforces new norms for watch duty hours at 57 airports

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New Delhi: The Directorate General of Civil Aviation on Thursday said it has implemented new norms related to watch duty hours and rest requirements for air traffic controllers at 57 airports, the regulator said today. The new norms mandate that duty period of air traffic controllers shall not exceed 12 hours and there must be a gap of at least 12 hours between the end of one shift and the beginning of the next shift.

Also, the aggregate of duty period shall not exceed 48 hours in a period of seven days and 180 hours in a period of 30 days. Further, if the maximum number of permissible consecutive days of duty is rostered, there shall be a minimum interval of 48 hours between the end of one consecutive period of duty days.

These air traffic control centers include those in Amritsar, Dehradun, Kishangarh, Shimla, Kanpur, Bhuntar, Gaggal, PantNagar, Safdarjung, Trichy, Coimbatore, Madurai, Tuticorin, Calicut, Kannur, Kalaburgi, Mysore, Belgaum, Hubli, Vijayawada, Cudappah, Hyderabad-Begumpet, Tirupati, and Rajamundry. The new watch duty hours have also been implemented at 12 airports from the western region including Mopa in Goa, Indore, Surat, Bhopal, Udaipur, Vadodara, Aurangabad, Hirasar, Jabalpur, Shridi, Kolhapur, and Juhu.

In the east and north-eastern region, the new norms are now applicable at 11 centers including Bhubaneshwar, Patna, Ranchi, Durgapur, Gaya, Jhasarguda, Deogar, Jagdalpur, Raipur, Kajuraho, and Kushinagar and ten from north-east region such as Barapani, Dibrugarh, Dimapur, Lengpui, Lilabari, Rupsi, Imphal, Agartala, Hollongi, and Tezu. “The rollout of the regulations at remaining airports would happen in a phased manner as per the roadmap indicated by Airports Authority of India," the civil aviation