The Hindu Business Line : `AAI employees strike will be total'

THE September 29 one-day strike called by AAI Employees Joint Forum against the privatisation move of the Delhi and Mumbai airports would be total as all the four unions in the AAI are supporting the strike decision , Mr E.R. Ramesh, AAI employees union's southern regional secretary, has said.

Talking to presspersons here on Friday, Mr Ramesh said the privatisation of Delhi and Mumbai airports which together accounted for 70 per cent of the revenue earned by the AAI will lead to impoverisation of all the other airports run by the AAI. Out of 120 airports in the country, only 20 airports were profit earning.

Mr Ramesh, who is also the convener of the AAI Employees Joint Forum, said a recent study by the Parliamentary standing committee on civil aviation under the CPM leader, Mr Nilothbal Basu, had categorically rejected as wasteful expenditure the Rs 15,000-crore investment for modernisation and revamp of Mumbai and Delhi airports. It cited, according to him, that the Mumbai airport could serve only till 2012 and beyond that, it would be totally congested . This being the case, a new a airport could be proposed.

As for the two greenfield airports proposed for Hyderabad and Bangalore, he said a four-member committee consisting of DGCA and the chairman of the AAI in its study made a couple of years ago found that Begumpet airport at Hyderabad, built at a cost of Rs.800 crore would last for another 15 years and in the event of government allowing a new airport to be developed in place of the present airport, the promoters would not take back even a single employee of the AAI.

In the case of the Bangalore airport project, the State Government was willing to offer 4000 acres of land for the project. Of the Rs 1,683 crore estimated cost, the project envisaged Rs 360 crore capital from the consortium of promoters and the remaining raised as loan. This being the case, the AAI itself could l meet the finance needs and build the new airport, he asked.

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