New drug test for Civil Aviation personnel

The supreme authority of aviation regulations in India, Directorate General of Civil Aviation has recently proposed a test for psychoactive substances such as cannabis, opioids and their variants for the civil aviation personnel. DGCA proposed that civil aviation personnel including flight crew members and air traffic controllers (ATCs) will have to undergo this test during their service period. The trial phase for this testing will be conducted at six airports of the country — Calcutta, Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad. The testing process will include two steps – a screening test and a confirmatory test. The screening test will be conducted locally at the airport or ATC complexes and the results will be recorded. If the test turns out to be positive, a confirmatory test will be carried out at any of the DGCA approved laboratories. Experts believe that DGCA is taking such a step for ensuring better safety measures involved with the civil aviation sector. Since regular testing is not possible, this test will be conducted at random and will have to cover 10% of the active employees. If found positive in the screening test, the individual employee will be removed from sensitive duties till further confirmations. 

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