Publicly available data suggest that the Civil Aviation Minister has not taken up any reforms in the one-and-a-half years that he has been at the helm.
Published Dec 08, 2025 | 11:00 AM ⚊ Updated Dec 08, 2025 | 11:00 AM
Union Minister for Civil Aviation Kinjarapu Ram Mohan Naidu.
Synopsis: Union Minister for Civil Aviation Kinjarapu Ram Mohan Naidu has been holding the position for the past one-and-a-half years. However, he has not been able to introduce reforms in the sector or effectively implement the government’s policies, which has contributed to the recent IndiGo crisis. It is time for him to take responsibility and step down from his post.
Union Minister for Civil Aviation Kinjarapu Ram Mohan Naidu is left with egg on his face. A combination of factors – a Union Minister who is non serious and has not grown enough to hold a people-facing ministry at the national level, who does not have a good working relationship with the Secretary of his Ministry and a dominant player flexing muscles rather than complying with norms — combined to land millions of flyers in India in a mess, the kind of which was unheard of in aviation history anywhere in the world.
Insider accounts following the IndiGo airline fiasco revealed interesting insights that paint a scary picture of how “clueless” the authorities are, even as flyers are left to the mercy of a virtual duopoly in a sector which is now a part of the daily lives of the middle-upper and middle-rich classes of the country.
According to sources familiar with the happenings in the Civil Aviation Ministry, Ram Mohan Naidu has often complained — to almost everyone he could — that the bureaucratic head of the ministry doesn’t listen to him. What it was that the minister wanted and why the bureaucrat did not heed him is, however, not known.
The civil aviation ministry’s secretary is Samir Kumar Sinha. An IAS officer of the 1994 batch from the Assam cadre, he is said to have the blessings of Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, and his loyalty is more to others than his own minister.
However, that is also true of most ministries in the Indian government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi; they put in place bureaucrats capable of keeping the Ministers in check.
Having said that, publicly available data suggest that the Civil Aviation Minister has not taken up any reforms in the one-and-a-half years that he has been at the helm, either in encouraging more players to enter the field or ensuring that passengers are not left to the whims and fancies of airlines.
Even as the Flight Duty Time Limit (FDTL) deadline was nearing, there is no record of the Minister having reviewed the preparedness of the airlines to implement it.
If one were to go by his X timeline, he either showered birthday wishes on fellow ministers or was happy participating in programmes that even a state-level minister should not. All in his Srikakulam constituency in Andhra Pradesh. In other words, he has effectively not grown beyond being a Member of Parliament.
Here is a sample: In November, in the weeks before the IndiGo mess unravelled, he inaugurated one “Anna canteen” — a place where subsidized food is provided for people and there are hundreds of them in Andhra Pradesh — opened newly built class rooms in a junior college, participated in a district level review meeting and also launched a new creche in Udaan Bhavan in Delhi.
However, he did not have time to review the new safety norms for flights.
By the way, he also kicked off a fixed fare program launched by Alliance Air on select routes for a three-month window, a pure marketing initiative.
Apparently, he has not learnt any lessons from the Air India flight crash at Ahmedabad in June this year. Even as 250 lives were lost in the crash, the minister was caught putting out reels on social media, inviting severe backlash. The reels were later deleted.
This time too, the TDP, which he represents, tried to come to his defence as social media erupted in rage against the minister in the wake of harrowing experiences of passengers following the cancellation of hundreds of flights.
According to sources, the initial plan of the TDP was not to get involved in the issue. However, Andhra Pradesh IT Minister Nara Lokesh felt that the party should stand by the minister, and it soon boomeranged. As is the norm by now, selective leaks to national media also indicate that the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) laid the entire blame for the crisis on the ministry concerned.
The manner in which the national media slammed the ministry for the fiasco is another indicator that it could not have done it without a sanction from the PMO.
In their sheepish response to questions on national channels, a TDP spokesperson went to the extent of claiming that, along with Ram Mohan Naidu, even Lokesh was monitoring the crisis.
“In what capacity is he reviewing the crisis? He is a minister in Andhra. What has he got to do with the Union Civil Aviation Ministry?” came the counter, exposing the silliness of the TDP spokesperson. Worse, by then, Lokesh was already on an Emirates flight to Dubai en route to the US. This raised another question: from where was he reviewing the issue, and why?
It is said that Ram Mohan Naidu did not provide any information to the party spokespersons on the efforts put in by him in the last one and a half years to improve the performance of the ministry. In the absence of official data/information, all that the spokespersons could do was to indulge in sycophancy and talk rubbish.
The TDP landed itself in a bigger mess than IndiGo. Unsurprisingly, it led to trolling on social media.
A careful examination of reports suggests that airlines, particularly IndiGo, have been resisting the FDTL norms for a long time. The initial deadline was, in fact, June 2024, but the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) kept deferring the new guidelines, buckling under pressure.
The norms, which increased the weekly rest for pilots from 36 to 48 hours and also reduced nighttime flying, are meant to enhance passenger safety and also reduce the load on pilots.
Moreover, multiple reports have emerged in the past two years regarding the low morale among pilots across the industry, and it was a much-needed measure.
According to industry insiders, Faiz Ahmed Kidwai, a senior IAS officer who took over as head of DGCA in January 2025, has been insisting that airlines comply with the revised norms. And a stage came when a totally unprepared Indigo had no option but to fall in line.
The result: A massive disruption with no hint of it coming.
All the civil aviation ministry was doing was simply addressing letters to the airlines requesting them to follow the new guidelines without cracking the whip. It’s akin to a school teacher reminding students to complete the homework without actually ensuring it is done.
Will Ram Mohan Naidu pay the price? An observer put it beautifully: “Performance of ministers is not a criterion in the NDA government. Therefore, it is unlikely that he will be dropped.”
The best that could happen is that he would be given a different portfolio, which is not people-facing, during the Cabinet reshuffle.
TDP leaders said that Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu is expected to have a conversation with Ram Mohan and give him a piece of his mind.
In the interests of the people, this is what the minister should do: Open the emergency exit and eject himself. All his sins would be condoned.
(Edited by Muhammed Fazil.)
