Maharaja and the videotape — Top AI official shunted for blocking reforms

The story of Verma’s sabotaging plans to privatise Air-India was curiously brought to light by a videotape of an August 2 meeting never meant to be public. In the tape, Verma is said to have made a pitch to scuttle privatisation. An angry PMO ordered him shunted out, first to the airline’s planning division and then to Corporate Affairs. Verma has gone on sick leave for 15 days while his colleagues sort out the mess. When contacted, Verma admitted he had spoken at the meeting but he hung up when asked about the videotape.

On opposite sides in this fight are Civil Aviation minister Sharad Yadav who’s not too keen on selling off the airline and Air-India Managing Director Michael Mascarenhas who is happy to go along with the government’s avowed policies on privatisation.

The battle over Air-India first started off with minor skirmishes, aimed at discrediting, and with luck even dismissing, Mascarenhas. Some weeks ago, Air-India’s chief vigilance officer (CVO), for instance, filed a report asking for Mascarenhas’ suspension for a deal involving commissions for a General Sales Agent in the UK (see The Indian Express XX/10/00).

While Mascarenhas argued that the CVO was out to get him since he had in turn forwarded complaints about the CVO to the ministry, Yadav appeared more than keen to sack Mascarenhas. Even before the ministry’s own CVO made his report on the matter, Yadav told The Indian Express: “If Air-India’s CVO’s report is upheld, I will sack him tomorrow.”

Verma’s story really begins on August 2 when, at an internal meeting of Air-India to discuss privatisation, he began spouting the now-familiar lines to delay privatisation — unknown to Verma, for some curious reason, the meeting was being videotaped.

Apart from Mascarenhas who had called the meeting, also present was George Abraham, president of the A-I’s employees’ union and a firm supporter of privatisation.

Verma, who was handpicked by Sharad Yadav for the job, didn’t oppose privatisation of the airline directly. He made a pitch for delaying the sell-off arguing that the only way to get a better price for the loss-making Air-India was to wait a while before it turned the corner — he bragged that he had managed to do some of this already.

He then said the government must insist upon the buyer to bring in new aircraft and he should not be allowed to resort to code-sharing by signing bilateral agreement with other airlines.

The new buyer, he added, must give an assurance that he would use the existing staff of Air-India — this was also a dig at Mascarenhas who had reduced the retiring age from 60 to 58, and is also planning to come out with a voluntary retirement scheme.

“Anybody can make it profitable by sacking or retrenching 6,000 of the 18,000 people, and bring the wage bill down by Rs 4,000 crore a year. The test of the buyer will be to make Air India profitable by retaining the interests of the workers in mind. Nobody should be retrenched,’ Verma grandstanded. “No foreiger can teach us professional skill. We do not want to learn lessons from a foreigner,” he added for effect.

When a transcript of the videotape was sent to the PMO, it was seen as an attempt by the commercial director to get the unions to oppose privatisation.

On October 7, a Saturday, Aviation Secretary A H Jung was summoned to the PMO. The PM was to leave for his knee replacement surgery on Monday. Jung who was hand-picked by Brajesh Mishra for the post (and is, incidentally, the first non-IAS person to hold this job) was told to remove Verma as director (Commercial) with immediate effect.

Jung told Mishra that no order could be issued as it was a holiday but then mustered courage and informed Yadav about his meeting. With Yadav unable to stall the change, Verma was given marching orders on October 9.

But the matter did not rest here. A few weeks later, when meetings began about the modalities of Air-India’s sale, it was pointed out that having Verma in the planning division could pose a problem. After all, any information about the airline’s profitability, expenditure and so on would have to emanate from this division.

So, barely a few weeks into the new job, Verma found himself being moved around all over again.