CITU Denounces

Move To Privatise Airports

IN a Statement issued from New Delhi on September 12, the secretariat of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) denounced the anti-national decision of the NDA cabinet to privatise the country’s airports. Mumbai and Delhi Airports are in the hit list, to begin with, where 74 per cent stake will be handed over to chosen private parties.

An airport is one of the most important utility infrastructures which caters to all in the society. Handing over the control of the same for profit making by the private interests cannot be in the interest of the nation and its people. It is having a vital bearing on the country’s security as well.  The privatisation of an airport is bound to affect the country’s security in a big way, which the Vajpayee government is ignoring deliberately, in its anxiety of favouring their chosen friends in the private sector, both domestic and foreign. The idea of retaining the charge of air traffic control and security in the hands of Airport Authority of India (AAI), as is being toyed by the Vajpayee cabinet, while handing over the control of the entire airport to private hands does not really make any sense and is being talked about to be fool the people. Further, the manner the cabinet has decided to treat the concerned employees involved in the airport operations through the so called deputation mechanism is another trickery to hoodwink the unions and the employees, to the detriment of their interest.

The CITU statement urged upon the government of India to refrain from such a disastrous anti-national exercise of privatising airports and called upon the working class and the patriotic people to unitedly resist such a retrograde move. (INN)