The Directorate General of Civil Aviation has proposed testing aviation personnel for psychoactive substances such as cannabis, opioids and their variants, officials said on Friday.

The DGCA said once the regulations are finalised, flight crew members and air traffic controllers (ATCs) would be subjected to this examination at six airports — Calcutta, Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad — in the first phase.

The process will include screening and a confirmatory test.

The screening will be carried out at the airport or the ATC complex and will be recorded. If a person is found positive, the confirmatory test will be carried out at one of the DGCA-approved laboratories.

The testing will be done at random and will cover 10 per cent of employees of each organisation over a period of one year, the regulator said.

If any person is found positive in the screening test, he or she will be removed from safety sensitive duties till the confirmatory results are received, the regulator said.

If the confirmatory test turns out to be positive the person will be subjected to rehabilitation and will return only after being cleared at multiple levels, according to the DGCA.