The government has appointed M Sathiyavathy, additional secretary and financial advisor in the civil aviation ministry, as Director General of Civil Aviation, replacing Prabhat Kumar.
Sathiyavathy, who will be the first woman in India to assume the position. She is expected to assume charge on January 5, 2015.
She is a 1982-batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of the Union Territories cadre and was earlier Chief Secretary in the Puducherry government.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation is seeking to restore India’s aviation safety ranking, which was downgraded last year by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) due to poor regulatory oversight. As the aviation regulator, it registers civilian aircraft, formulates standards of airworthiness for planes, licenses pilots, air traffic controllers, and engineers, and grants air operating permits to Indian airlines.