The Hindu : Another tragic crash

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Tuesday, Mar 05, 2002

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Another tragic crash

NOT MUCH WAS known about G.M.C. Balayogi before he was elected Speaker of the Lok Sabha in 1998. He had been a member of Parliament for one term and served briefly as a Minister in the Andhra Pradesh Government — a political record which some considered incommensurate with a prestigious and high-ranking constitutional post such as the Speaker of the Lok Sabha. Balayogi owed his elevation to the vagaries of coalition politics, specifically to the arithmetical compulsions which required Mr. Vajpayee to seek and win Chandrababu Naidu's support. However, it was to Balayogi's eternal credit that he adapted and grew in his office with a natural, almost instinctive, flair. Presiding over a House populated by a number of senior politicians — including former Prime Ministers, Governors and Chief Ministers — Balayogi conducted himself with the dignity and fairness required of his high office. Raised in an agricultural family in a tiny village in East Godavari district, his most endearing trait was a soft-spoken humility, which was spontaneously reflected in his role as Speaker which, more often than not in these unruly parliamentary times, required consulting leaders of various political parties and securing a broad acceptance for his decisions. He was at the forefront in pushing for a code of conduct for Members of Parliament, a worthy initiative which has failed primarily because of the reluctance of MPs to adhere to it and certainly not for his want of trying. Balayogi was impossible to dislike and the generous tributes which followed his sudden and tragic death in a helicopter crash reflect the affection he earned across the political spectrum. In his short but eventful tenure as the Speaker of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Lok Sabha, he notched a number of firsts. Apart from the widely known fact that he was the first Dalit to become Speaker, he was also the youngest and the first member of a regional party (TDP) to occupy the office.

The fact that an investigation has commenced to determine what exactly caused the privately-owned helicopter carrying Balayogi and two others to crash, should not prevent the raising of a larger issue. This relates to the safety of small aircraft, particularly those owned by private operators and those operating non-scheduled flights. Apprehensions about the safety of private fleets, many of which are owned by business houses, have been voiced for fairly long now. The lack of the necessary infrastructure to maintain them, doubts about whether the pilots are adequately trained and questions about the efficacy of the security and safety audits conducted by the Directorate-General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) are some of the issues which have occupied the attention of civil aviation experts. It was only last year that Madhavrao Scindia, one of the country's most gifted and promising politicians, was tragically killed along with six others when a chartered plane belonging to an industrial group crashed in central Uttar Pradesh. A little earlier, a private chopper belonging to a Delhi-based business house went down killing three people. Scindia's death had even resulted in the setting up of a separate committee to examine the safety of smaller privately-owned aircraft. Whatever the actual cause for the latest crash, the death of Balayogi is bound to reopen questions about what the civil aviation authorities propose to do in order to introduce a tougher safety regimen for such aircraft. Small aircraft and helicopters on non-scheduled flights have witnessed a worrying string of crashes in the recent past and it is imperative that quick measures are implemented to deter recurrences.

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