People's Democracy

Stop Privatisation

Of Airports: CPI(M)

CPI(M) MP Tapan Sen has strongly objected to the UPA-II government’s move to privatise 20 airports in the country and demanded immediate halt to the move.

In a letter to the union minister of civil aviation, Ajit Singh, on October 24, 2013, Sen asked the government to take note of the serious opposition to the move by the employees of Airports Authority of India (AAI) to this move. All these 20 major airports have been renovated/modernized by the AAI spending huge amounts of public exchequer. Now, the ministry is seeking to hand over these airports to private parties through the so-called Public-Private Partnership (PPP) route.

The CPI(M) MP reminded the minister about his two earlier letters written to him on the same issue in September, to which no reply has been given till date except for acknowledging the receipt. He also told the minister to take note of the fact that all the unions representing the employees of AAI have jointly voiced their strong opposition to such move of privatization. The Joint Forum of Unions and Associations of AAI has already undertaken a series of agitation programme to record their determined opposition to the move of handing over the readymade modernised airports of the country to private hands. The agitation programmes have also been forwarded to the minister by the Joint Forum on September 4, 2013.

In this context Tapan Sen urged upon the minister to take note of the serious discontent of the employees of AAI and stop the patently unjust move of the government to transfer the control of country's major airports to private hands, that too after investing huge public funds for their modernisation/expansion.