Airport revamp’s on a Left wing, union prayer

On the key issue of labour, too, the UPA Government has sugar-coated the proposal for the Left: it plans to make it manadatory on the new operator not to retrench existing staff for a period of three years—the previous government had kept this at two.

Further, the Ministry also plans to dole out incentives to the private operator for employing AAI personnel. And even after three years if these employees are laid off, all efforts will be made to induct them into AAI.

This, sources say, largely takes care of one of the three basic concerns raised by the Left parties. The other two being the fear of ownership of the two airports slipping into the hands of a foreign player and the broader issue of ‘‘security.’’

Despite all this, Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel could not win over the Airports Authority Employees Union which announced a protest for tomorrow. Said AAEU general secretary M K Ghosal: ‘‘We feel that the ministry is bringing back the same policy adopted by the previous government. We want a complete rollback on privatisation. All this talk of restricting FDI doesn’t change the status at all.’’

The AAEU will stage a dharna on Thursday outside Rajiv Gandhi Bhavan and CPI (M)leader Sitaram Yechury along with CITU head M K Pandhe are likely to address the gathering.

On capping FDI in this sector, Patel said: ‘‘It is not just the Left. I personally believe that if we have the capital and the resource available in India why should we not give our corporates the opportunity.’’

He, however, clarified that the joint-venture will still have to bring global technical expertise. ‘‘How they do it is up to them. They can even give them equity but this should not exceed 49 per cent is all we are saying.’’

The Left was concerned that ownership may slip into the hands of foreign players as the previous government had not made these specifications. It must be noted that the previous government had decided to discuss the specfics only after expressions of interest had been obtained and the shortlisting done.

Further, Patel is said to have conveyed it to CPI General Secretary AB Bardhan—whom he met this morning—that the Government will retain control over security and this was not even part of the restructuring plan.

But Patel’s emphasis was clear today as he corrected the media from calling this a privatisation process. ‘‘We are not selling our assets. This is a leasing process and so I understand it as restructuring and modernisation, not privatisation.’’

As expected, the Ministry extended the deadline for submission of expressions of interest from June 4 to July 20. ‘‘We are committed to this process and will try to finish it within this fiscal year itself. We will also try to make up for this extension by compressing the timeframe in the subsequent processes.’’

Patel also said he would press ahead with the flight acquisition plans of Indian Airlines and Air India. ‘‘I want to finish the process in 2004 itself so that the first orders placed at the earliest.’’

Yet again, the new minister emphasised he would move ahead with other policy issues only after preparing a comprehensive civil aviation policy. But he indicated that private carriers may be allowed to go on those foreign routes which are not serviced by either of the national carriers.

‘‘Air India today just carries 20 per cent of the international passenger traffic in India. This a sad situation and it has to change.’’