Kill it. Shut it. Forget it

Such is the power of the largesse that this pipsqueak ministry wields that even the doughtiest of reformers in our establishment have failed to get it to mend its ways. The only reform it has allowed is the opening up of domestic aviation to private airlines but again with so many restrictions and caveats that it gives even the licence-quota raj a bad name. The ministry puts a limit on the size of aircraft a private airline can buy, each new aircraft acquisition has to be cleared by it. There are loads of other protectionist regulations 8212; including a fiat to government servants and ministers to only travel by the public sector carriers. And to see how they flaunt it, check out the executive class in Jet Airways flights but then don8217;t ask me how they do it!

Then there is the truly ludicrous ban on our private domestic airlines from international flights, even to neighbouring countries. This when the public sector airlines do not have the aircraft, staff or the enterprise to use their own traffic rights on these routes. Ask any frequent traveller to Colombo, Dhaka, Kathmandu and even Karachi and Lahore and the answer will be, smart money prefers the tiny airlines of these neighbouring countries or often there is no choice anyway as we have sold these routes away. That is, actually, the only way our national carriers can make money 8212; by stopping their own operations and selling away their bilaterals. Get an auditor to sit with the balancesheet of Air-India and check where the profits are coming from. It is quite possible that the Pilots8217; Guild was actually doing Air-India a favour as it seems that the less they fly, the better its bottomline.

Lately, the ministry has been working overtime to increase the profitability of its own PSUs by hawking the same bilateral rights. If you did an inventory of the rights sold to middle-eastern carriers and even Air Lanka owned by Emirates you8217;d wonder how all of India is flying to the Gulf or thereabouts. Except the story is a little different. All these carriers are using the new traffic rights to carry onward passengers to Europe and the US on cheaper tickets. Air-India and Indian Airlines are being killed on the excuse of saving them.

Ask Shahnawaz Hussain this and he will say, what can I do, I don8217;t have aircraft. Then ask him why doesn8217;t he leave it to the private sector to buy their own aircraft, or privatise his own airlines so they can raise the cash, and he will throw self-serving national interest mumbo-jumbo at you. Then, chances are, he will tell you how much interest he has been personally taking to improve his airlines, from installing sleeper-seats in his jumbos to improving the china, the silver and the sarees his stewardesses wear. In which other country with even a partially reformed economy would you have the honourable cabinet minister himself announce improvements like these or the provision later junked as being stupid of the very desi ghee-and-smelly-oil Kerala massages on his flights? Of all our PSUs, the ones owned by this ministry are the least autonomous and the most comprehensively milked. No wonder they need as much protection as our vaunted small-scale industry and as much budgetary support as our khadi boards.

This ministry has the most stellar record in successfully resisting all reform. Both its airlines have already been taken off the privatisation list now, with fingers presumably being licked clean in the right quarters in anticipation of an aircraft-buying binge. The ministry also has another unique distinction: Taking a privatisation deal to the cabinet four times, getting the approval and then stalling. This is to do with the privatisation of airports. So brazen has it been that its babus once even went out on extensive road shows to several countries to attract private investment in our airports only to 8220;discover8221; subsequently that it couldn8217;t be done because they had forgotten to take the law ministry8217;s clearance. In successive budgets, finance ministers have announced the privatisation of airports. They have not even bothered to roll it back because they know it was never expected to happen anyway.

Tourism Minister Jagmohan is no less a nationalist than anybody else in this government and he8217;s been pleading for an open skies policy because that is the only way India can increase its tourist inflows. But the ministry of civil aviation asks what will it do to our already bleeding public sector? And if they shut down, or get privatised, how will we, the ministers and civil servants, get our freebies? And sideways postings?

The joint secretaries in the ministry are always eyeing one of the top jobs in the two airlines and their strike rate is great. It is then reasonable that they would also have a vested interest in not letting the chief executive of the day survive. Once he has got his scalp he moves into his chair. First as stop-gap, then on a tenure. Even the secretary has his own permanent coach on this gravy train. For nearly five years now, Air-India has not had a full-time chairman. Secretary, civil aviation, holds that juicy charge on an ex-officio basis and perks include free interline travel rights for him and family. Anybody in the ministry would tell you the stories of some of these ex-officio chairmen personally travelling overseas all the time 8212; along with their families 8212; to negotiate bilaterals. The current incumbent though, I am told, is an exception. Incidentally, the Airports Authority of India also hasn8217;t had a chairperson for one and a half years.

How remarkable that one lightweight minister, a secretary and three joint secretaries should pack so much clout as to turn back a whole wave of reform! But if you look closely, it is quite simple. They are happy to distribute this largesse of freebies and upgrades liberally to fellow politicians, babus and most certainly to many journalists and thereby look after the 8220;national interest8221; of all those who matter in the establishment. And who cares if as a result we have to suffer the shame of having one of the world8217;s most decrepit national carriers besides some of the lousiest airports, poorest technological back-bones how many countries have fog disruptions like us?, among the highest accident rates and the most strike-prone pilots and air traffic controllers. So primitive, unreformed, sarkari and self-destructively protectionist our civil aviation environment is, that it still allows even pilots who get paid several lakhs a month to be defined as labour and thereby entitled to protection of laws made for the toiling masses.

The sickness is so deep, no therapy, no surgery, not even amputation can help. If India has to modernise its aviation, it must begin by killing, and entombing by the side of Delhi8217;s Safdarjang Airport, this monstrosity called the ministry of civil aviation and replace it with a purely regulatory body as is the norm in other free economies. If the ministers and the babus still want their gravy train, Air-India can be retained as a department of the ministry of personnel as the flag carrier of Government of India. It will be a small price for winning some of our self-respect back.

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