Opposing attempts to privatise the airports in Mumbai and Delhi, Left parties have shot off a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh demanding to stop the process, which they said violated the spirit of the Common Minimum Programme.‘‘We regret that in spite of the categorical commitment in CMP not to privatise profit making PSU’s, UPA government continued to pursue the same route of privatisation of the top two major revenue-earning airports at Delhi and Mumbai,’’ they said in the letter. The entire workforce of Airport Authority of India have been strongly opposing this route of modernisation through privatisation and had submitted an alternative plan with internal resources under the present set up of AAI, it said.The letter, signed by CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat, CPI general secretary A B Bardhan, AIFB leader Debabrata Biswas and RSP secretary Abani Roy, noted that AAI was consistently earning profit and it has a reserve of Rs 2,500 crore with a debt equity ratio of 1:1.5. ‘‘Thus, finance can be easily tapped further from debt market for the purpose of financing the modernisation scheme costing Rs 5,000 to 6,000 crore in the first phase of five years as offered by some private bidders,’’ it said.They also brought to the PM’s attention a report of the parliamentary standing committee which said modernisation and restructuring of Delhi and Mumbai airports were lingering on the plea of resource crunch.
