New Delhi: M Sathiyavathy on Monday took over as the new Director General of Civil Aviation, succeeding Prabhat Kumar. Sathiyavathy, a 1982-batch IAS officer, is the first woman to head DGCA and has been appointed to the post for three years.

Prior to becoming the country's aviation regulator, she was working as Additional Secretary and Financial Advisor to the Civil Aviation Ministry since February last year. She also served as Puducherry's Chief Secretary before that, and is due for elevation as Secretary by July.

Kumar, a 1985-batch IAS officer of the Uttar Pradesh cadre, who was appointed in January last year as the DGCA head for three years, would revert to his home cadre. The top-level change comes at a time when DGCA is faced with a review report of the US regulator Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which had downgraded its safety ranking to Category-II on par with countries like Bangladesh, Barbados, Ghana and Nicaragua.

India was till January last year holding the topmost safety ranking Category-I. Kumar had taken a series of steps and brought in several regulations to enhance aviation safety to resolve the deficiencies pointed out by FAA. FAA, which held its third audit of DGCA only last month, is likely to come up with its assessment over India's air safety mechanism by February. Following this, it would decide whether or not to revert India to the top Category-I.

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