Aviation ministry mulling new regulator to replace DGCA: Ajit Singh

The civil aviation ministry is looking to replace the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) with a new regulatory body, civil aviation minister Ajit Singh said today.

''We want to replace DGCA with a Civil Aviation Authority, we will look to introduce a new bill in the winter session of Parliament,'' Singh said, adding that the current regulatory authority ''needs to be revamped, needs to be strengthened''.

The DGCA, which monitors airfares, meanwhile, has advised airlines to ensure that airfares remain within the fare band. He, however, said the DGCA had done a study of airfares and concluded that the airfare offered by various scheduled domestic airlines on different sectors remained within the fare bands available on their respective websites.

The DGCA study of airfares followed media reports about increase in airfares over the last few days. It has concluded that the airfares offered by the various scheduled domestic airlines on different sectors remained within the fare bands available on their respective websites.

''In the last 15 to 20 days airfares of flights to and from Delhi have gone up on account of increased user development fee (UDF) and service tax,'' DGCA said, adding, ''Fares for 14 days in advance of the journey are still available in the lowest fare buckets.''

DGCA said a random monitoring of airfares by DGCA has not revealed an alarming trend.