mumbai if techies largely come from andhra pradesh and nurses from kerala the fecund breeding grounds that produce air traffic control officers atcos are in bihar and uttar pradesh while not producing enough nurses techies or ias officers may not have had a detrimental effect on mumbai or maharashtra the same cannot be said for atcos chronic flight delays and sharply increasing cases of nearmisses at the mumbai airport are a case in point airports authority of india aai statistics show that since 2005 about 1300 atcos have been recruited from across the country out of this only 40 are from maharashtra maharashtras poor 3 contribution is a prime reason why the mumbai air traffic control centre is chronically shortstaffed as it is forced to heavily rely on controllers from other parts of the country for survival it all boils down to the aai transfer policy which hinges on a particular detail the home station of the controller indias airspace is divided into four primary regions or flight information regions firs and these are delhi mumbai chennai and kolkata guwahati as subfir throughout hisher career a controller has to spend five years outside the home fir since most atcos come from uttar pradesh and bihar followed by rajasthan haryana and madhya pradesh they will all be posted within the delhi fir for most of their careers in india the most soughtafter atc centre is lucknow followed by delhi the irony is that the lucknow air traffic control centre needs only about 30 controllers but there is a waiting list of at least 100 who want to be posted there said an atco on the other end of the spectrum is mumbai where no one wants to be posted due to lack of aai residential quarters expensive real estate and high stress that comes from working in a centre that handles heavy volumes of air traffic but is low on manpower and ground infrastructure the mumbai fir covers gujarat most of maharashtra and karnataka apart from covering the entire arabian sea the arabian sea is not home to any controller and those residing in gujarat maharashtra and karnataka dont seem to find the job attractive in the atco recruitment entrance exams held by aai on april 24 at the 10 mumbai centres the turnout was less than 50 said an aai source at the mumbai atc centre over 80 controllers are from other firs most need long periods of leave every year to visit their home towns and parents and once they complete five years they return to their home town with the mumbai experience noted a senior atco but due to the shortage many atcos transferred to mumbai have been forced to stay put despite completing five years outside their home town aai must carry out awareness campaigns in schools and colleges in mumbai to get locals to take up the atco profession or mumbai airport will suffer as the controller shortage will increase the nearmisses flight delays will worsen