TLI Staff
New Delhi: Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), the trade union affiliated to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) that powers ruling BJP, has thrown its weight behind state-run Airports Authority of India (AAI) workers demanding immediate halt of government’s privatization overdrive.
Armed with facts and figures to make a strong case for stopping privatization of profitable airports, the BMS has appealed Prime Minister Narendra Modi to rethink his decision.
“Hope a good sense will prevail in the government and GOI (Government of India) will take a positive step to stop privatization of airports,” the trade union General Secretary Virjesh Upadhyay has written to PM Modi.
Upadhyay has posed some tough questions to the government. He has asked the government as to why airports are being handed out to private companies after crores of public money was spent on modernising them. Moreover, they are being leased out when it was time to get return and profit on public investments.
The BMS has also objected to AAI Board decision to lease out a dozen airports saying it was in gross violation of AAI Act. It stated that while the Board is empowered to take the decision to go for public private partnership (PPP), the same has to be in public interest.
The RSS affiliate noted that in the case of all the 12 airports, already leased out or in the process of doing so, no public interest was being served given that AAI has upgraded and managed the facilities in accordance with the global standards. This has been endorsed by Airport Council International (ACI) ratings awarded to various airports.
“It may be seen that while the world ACl-ASQ average rating of Airport is 4.14, ACI-ASQ rating of AAI airports is 4.60 in respect of 10 airports,” the union said quoting a 2016 ratings.
The BMS has listed six major reasons why government needs to review its decision and abandon the privatization programme.
It has said that the proposed PPP mode is against the commercial interest of AAI and such move would turn the state-run agency into a sick unit. The union has also said that privatization would hit the backward section of the society hard as reservation policy would not apply there. This would make the Constitutional provision of reservation for SCs, STs and OBCs irrelevant.
The BMS in its letter dated October 30 said that AAI management’s decision to approve PPP mode for a dozen airports was a disregard to law and also beyond its functional jurisdiction.
The decision of AAI Board has snatched the Constitutional rights of Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs) and other Backward Community of the nation,” it has said.
The Modi government in its previous term bid out six profit-making airports. Gujarat-based Adani Enterprises emerged as the winning bidder for all the six airports. While the government has handed out three of these airports – Ahmedabad, Lucknow and Mangaluru to Adani, the other three would also be given in due course.
Meanwhile, it has decided to privatize another set of half a dozen airports.
Despite frequent agitation by workers under the banner of Joint Forum of Unions & Associations of Airports Authority of India, the government has gone ahead with the plan. The AAI is currently in the process of selecting a consultant-cum-transaction advisor for the proposed operation, management and development (OMD) contract of the six airports.
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