An ombudsman to sort out air travellers' woes will soon be appointed, first in Delhi and later in other cities.

The Civil Aviation Ministry has held three meetings with representatives of Air Passengers Association of India, Directorate-General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), Consumers Association of India and Jaago Re in Delhi to formulate guidelines for the grievance redressal mechanism, according to Mr D. Sudhakar Reddy, President of the Air Passengers Association of India.

The Ministry has already approved the plan and legislation for the same is likely to be tabled soon, he said.

“The DGCA is supposed to look into passenger complaints but it does not have the support or wherewithal for this.”

Hence, the idea for an ombudsman, who will look into any complaint, was mooted, said Mr Reddy.

Issues that an ombudsman can look into include long immigration queue, staff shortage and lack of infrastructure and other facilities.

There is a Public Grievances Redressal Machinery headed by the Joint Secretary in the Civil Aviation Ministry. He is designated as a Public Grievances Officer. A Web-based Centralised Public Grievance Redressal and Monitoring System was formed in 2008. In 2010, this cell received 284 public grievance cases. Of this, 92 were disposed off, according to the 2010-11 annual report of the Ministry.

By June, the Delhi airport is expected to have an ombudsman. This will slowly be extended to other metros as well, said Mr Reddy.

Mr M. Kannan, the Economic Advisor to the Ministry of Civil Aviation, is the architect of this initiative. He earlier headed the Economic Regulation Division in the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, he said.

Similar grievance redressal system exists in the banking and insurance sectors.

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