Mumbai: The government has no option but to privatise Air India as it has around Rs 80,000-crore debt and needs cooperation of the employees for carrying out the process, Minister of State for Civil Aviation, Hardeep Singh Puri is said to have told the airline unions Thursday.
At a meeting with some 13 Air India unions in Delhi, the minister also assured that the government was trying to address the concerns of the employees regarding issues such as job protection post privatisation, a union representative said here.
The unions, however, opposed the legacy carrier going into private hands and stressed that the airline employees are capable enough to run it provided they get the government support, the representative said.
“The minister said that Air India has a debt of Rs 80,000 crore and no expert has solution to that. In this situation, privatisation is the only choice left for the government,” one of the union representatives said after the meeting, which lasted for an hour. He also said that Puri sought cooperation from all airline unions in carrying out the disinvestment process of the national carrier.
Later Puri tweeted that he had a ‘long and useful’ discussion with the union representatives and that the two sides will meet again in the next 10 days.
“Had a long & useful discussion with representatives of various @airindia in unions in context of the forthcoming privatisation of the airline,” the minister said in a tweet. Unions expressed their concerns which were duly noted. We have agreed to meet again in the next 10 days to carry forward our discussion,” Puri added.
The minister also told the unions that the Air India Specific Alternative Mechanism (AISAM), headed by home minister Amit Shah, has met only once and he will take all concerns of the employees to it at its next meetings, the union representative said.
The union representative said the minister told the representatives Thursday that he had already ‘committed’ about clearing of the pending dues in the Parliament and as far as the issue of job protection was concerned, the government will try to incorporate it in the Expression of Interest (EoI). “The minister, however, did not give any specific date for the issuance of the EoI,” the representative informed.
Civil aviation secretary Pradeep Singh Kharola and Air India CMD Ashwani Lohani were also present at the meeting.
PTI