Regulator & Airspace Governance readiness for AAM in India

India’s Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) ecosystem is emerging at a moment when global aviation systems are undergoing structural transformation driven by electrification, automation, and new airspace architectures (World Economic Forum, 2024). Unlike countries where AAM governance is anchored within a central aviation authority (Wiedemann et al., 2024), India’s institutional landscape is characterised by fragmented, multi-layered, and loosely coupled regulatory actors. A closer, system-level evaluation reveals instead an interdependent governance architecture, where influence, decision-making authority, and technical capability are distributed across several high-capacity institutions.

At the centre of this architecture sits the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) and the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA). Together they constitute the regulatory core:

• DGCA operationalises safety, type-certification, vertiport design standards and unmanned traffic management (UTM) integration.
• MoCA defines the strategic policy vision and anchors major infrastructure initiatives.

Furthermore, as India advances towards operationalising eVTOL services, the successful integration of vertiports and Unmanned Traffic Management (UTM) systems will necessitate robust coordination among a range of institutional actors. This includes not only the core aviation regulators but also telecommunication authorities, as highlighted by Bauranov & Rakas (2021), who play a crucial role in enabling the digital infrastructure required for UTM. Security agencies and state-level infrastructure organisations must also be actively involved to address the multifaceted requirements of safety, connectivity, and physical infrastructure, as pointed out by the World Economic Forum (2024).

Therefore, there is a need for a comprehensive, multi-criteria diagnostic tool. Such a tool is essential for systematically evaluating which organisations act as facilitators and which may present obstacles to the deployment of Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) solutions in India. The development and application of this diagnostic approach would enable policymakers and stakeholders to identify gaps, enhance inter-agency collaboration, and accelerate the readiness of the AAM ecosystem for large-scale deployment.

Classification of Stakeholders in India’s AAM Ecosystem

The realisation of India’s eVTOL and vertiport networks depends not only on the aviation regulators but also on how effectively they align and coordinate with adjacent sectors. Critical enablers of AAM lie outside the traditional civil-aviation domain. Indian AAM stakeholders can be grouped into four functionally distinct governance clusters:

Aviation regulators

• Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA)
• Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA)
• Airports Authority of India (AAI)
• Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS)
• Airports Economic Regulatory Authority (AERA)
• Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB)
• Military Air Defence Authority (shared mandate with security)

Telecom, Digital Network and Spectrum Authorities

• Department of Telecommunications (DoT)
• Wireless Planning and Coordination Wing (WPC)
• Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI)
• Standing Advisory Committee on Radio Frequency Allocation (SACFA)

Security and National Governance Bodies

• Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA)
• BCAS (overlapping aviation-security mandate)
• Military Air Defence Authority

Infrastructure and State-Level Implementation Bodies

• Karnataka Infrastructure Development Department
• Civil Aviation Department, Haryana
• Maharashtra Directorate of Civil Aviation
• BEAM Committee (experimental and testing)

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and the Wireless Planning & Coordination Wing (WPC) control the spectrum, communications networks and RF-clearances essential for UTM connectivity (Govt. of India, n.d.). The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and security agencies frame counter-UAS and aviation-security protocols that determine the permissibility of low-altitude movement across sensitive airspaces (Govt. of India, n.d.-a). Meanwhile, state-level civil aviation, infrastructure and urban-development departments influence land allocation, vertiport siting, multimodal integration and the local executive capacity required to operationalise central regulations (World Economic Forum, 2024). In practice, AAM deployment in India emerges from the synchronisation of these interdependent domains, not from top-down issuance of aviation rules alone.

India is not difficult; it is interdependent.

Given this distribution of authority, policymaking for AAM is not “deficient” but inherently cross-sectoral. It requires multi-agency harmonisation, continuous negotiation of mandates, and alignment of heterogeneous incentives (Benjamyn I. Scott & Öykü Kurtpınar, 2025). This fragmentation reflects the differentiated responsibilities embedded in India’s federal and sectoral regulatory structure. However, it also creates coordination risks, raising the possibility of policy time-lags, conflicting directives and delayed implementation of enabling infrastructure (Liu et al., 2024). This necessitates a structured stakeholder analysis model capable of capturing not only who holds regulatory power but how that power is distributed, exercised and coordinated.

In this study the interlocking dimensions of relevant stakeholders was modelled for analysis using three lenses:

• Salience: Building on stakeholder salience theory (Mitchell et al., 1997), it measures power, legitimacy and urgency. In AAM, high-salience actors create the enabling rules, enforce compliance, or control essential enablers. Understanding salience clarifies who regulates the strategic chokepoints.
• Centrality: mapping institution’s position using degree (direct connections ), betweenness (presence on shortest regulatory paths) and closeness (reachability and inter-agency responsiveness). Those with bridging roles, high connectivity or strategic positioning can accelerate or delay system-wide coordination (Provan & Kenis, 2008).
• Readiness: Drawing from state-capability frameworks (Andrews et al., 2013) evaluating legal authority, technical expertise, funding access, and coordination capacity. Readiness distinguishes between institutions that hold authority and those that can deliver operationalisation.

One of AAM’s main risks globally is policy delay gaps between regulatory intent and on-ground implementation (Raghunatha et al., 2023). The above-mentioned lenses provide a Governance, Policy and Technical Readiness Index that offers a system-level view of influence and implementation potential. It helps to identify which bodies may introduce policy delays that will cascade into implementation-level time-shifts.

India’s Polycentric Regulatory Landscape

The index produces a differentiated but coherent ranking of India’s AAM-relevant institutions. The results reveal a distinct distribution of influence and capability across four major domains of governance relevant to India’s Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) ecosystem: aviation regulators, telecommunications and digital network authorities, security agencies, and state-level infrastructure bodies.

The institutional configuration visible in the chart highlights a system in which multiple regulators possess overlapping but high-capacity mandates. This creates an environment where progress in one node is contingent upon synchronisation across others. This structure confirms India’s system as polycentric rather than hierarchical, consistent with the emerging global pattern of AAM regulatory ecosystems (Barbano & Costa, 2023).

Aviation

MoCA scores the highest weighted score (0.90) due to strong salience (0.85) and high centrality (0.68) which makes it the central policy anchor of the ecosystem. Its high salience band in the ribbon chart also indicates institutional legitimacy and agenda-setting authority. Its readiness score is supported by recent policy frameworks and vertiport guidance material (Ministry of Civil Aviation, 2025). DGCA exhibits the highest centrality of all actors (0.78), consistent with its role in safety regulation, certification, and operational clearances. Its readiness score (0.45) suggests that eVTOL and UTM regulations are still evolving, mirroring global regulatory development trajectories. AAI demonstrates high readiness (0.68) and strong centrality (0.67), driven by its management of airspace, CNS/ATM systems and airport–vertiport integration processes. The salience scores of MHA, BCAS, TRAI, and AERA are moderate to high which indicates they possess essential regulatory authority, but lower readiness values. Such actors become timing variables, influencing when operational approvals, safety protocols, tariff rules, and security permissions can be issued. Because their mandates govern sensitive domains, even moderate readiness gaps can translate into policy or implementation delays.

Telecommunications & network

Telecommunications and digital infrastructure agencies such as DoT, WPC, TRAI, and SACFA constitute the second critical governance cluster. Their centrality scores affirm that AAM is inherently dependent on communications networks, spectrum availability, and digital integration. DoT displays high centrality (0.71) and moderate salience (0.63), highlighting its indispensable function in spectrum-backed command-and-control (C2) systems, private 5G/CNPN environments, and UTM–network integration. Its readiness score (0.45) reflects the early state of AAM-specific telecom frameworks. WPC combines moderate centrality (0.56) with high readiness (0.65), aligning with its role in RF clearance and spectrum coordination domains. TRAI holds moderate salience (0.53) but low readiness (0.25), indicating that QoS, latency standards, and network reliability requirements for AAM remain underdeveloped. SACFA occupies a low-salience (0.18), mid-readiness position (0.33), consistent with its technical mandate in approving radio equipment siting including vertiport and UTM infrastructure.

Security

The security domain includes the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), BCAS, and the Military Air Defence Authority. These agencies hold high salience due to their authority over protected airspace, counter-UAS protocols, and geofencing restrictions. MHA has a strong salience (0.68) score and moderate centrality (0.52), reflecting its decisive influence on low-altitude corridor approvals and national security clearances. Its readiness score (0.48) indicates that AAM-specific security frameworks are still emerging. The Military Air Defence Authority exhibits moderate centrality (0.41) and high salience (0.53), consistent with its gatekeeping role over defence airspace and sensitive geographies. Its low readiness score (0.20) suggests limited operational pathways for AAM integration in restricted zones.

Local Bodies

State civil aviation departments such as Karnataka, Haryana, and Maharashtra form the fourth category. Their scores cluster closely: centrality between 0.44 and 0.55, salience at 0.33, and readiness between 0.18 and 0.30. These values reflect their execution-oriented roles in the AAM ecosystem. States control land allocation, utility interfaces, zoning permissions, and multimodal integration. Their positions in the ribbon chart show thinner readiness bands compared to central actors. Their moderate centrality indicates regular interaction with national level agencies, while low readiness highlights limited technical capacity, regulatory preparedness, and operational capability for vertiport implementation and corridor planning. Since vertiport siting, land approvals, and urban integration fall under state jurisdiction, these scores reinforce that AAM deployment will require strategic coordination between federal-level regulatory clarity and state-level execution capability.

The BEAM Committee, although not a state body, shares similar characteristics: low salience, low readiness, and moderate centrality, consistent with its function as a testing and validation body for BVLOS operations rather than a core regulator.

These values signal a shift from a hierarchical aviation-centred model toward a governance system where aviation, telecommunications, economic regulation, and security bodies jointly shape AAM outcomes. This pattern is characteristic of polycentric governance, where multiple centres of authority coordinate to steer technological transitions (Geels, 2002; Raghunatha et al., 2023). The regulatory challenge does not arise from institutional weakness but from the need to coordinate across diverse governance nodes. The multi-layered structure reinforces that AAM in India is not solely an aviation project; it is an aviation-telecom-security-urban systems project.

Navigating India’s Multi-Layered Governance Ecosystem

As India advances toward the deployment of Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) systems the policy and institutional environment shaping these technologies is undergoing rapid transformation. In an interdependent system like India, the gap between regulatory intent and implementation feasibility cannot be understood through institutional mandates alone. It must be interpreted through the strategic implications of stakeholder interactions, dependencies and readiness. AAM systems rely on tight coupling of aviation safety, digital connectivity, airspace management and urban infrastructure. These domains are regulated by different institutions whose incentives do not always align. FAA’s AAM ConOps 2.0 (2023) depicts AAM governance as centred on the aviation authority but heavily reliant on inter-agency coordination (FAA, 2023). Research also shows that fragmented institutional roles often create policy delays, sequencing errors and capability mismatches that directly affect the timing and scalability (Geels, 2002; Raghunatha et al., 2023). Therefore, businesses entering this space must navigate overlapping jurisdictions and evolving readiness levels. Failure to recognise these interdependencies shall result in stalled pilots, misaligned investments or regulatory dead-ends.

The index acts as a diagnostic instrument for anticipating timing risks and regulatory slow points, enabling firms to sequence regulatory engagement realistically. The strategic implications derived offers a structured compass for navigating this landscape:

• engage core regulators early,
• treat telecom as foundational infrastructure,
• collaborate with states as implementation partners,
• use readiness-based indices to forecast bottlenecks, and
• structure multi-actor consortia aligned with India’s governance topology.

References

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