 "PM should ask aviation ministry to avoid AI privatisation: D Raja")
Terming as "alarming" reports on the issue, he said, "Such proposals conveyed to the media create demoralisation among the employees and also a sense of futility in trying to make Air India a viable air carrier."
"While equity was not being infused in Air India in accordance with the turnaround plan, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) is also being systematically undermined," he said in a letter to the Prime Minister.
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Instead of bringing a civil aviation policy even after so many years, the government was "undertaking privatisation in bits and pieces without taking Parliament into confidence," he said.
"Just as in the telecom sector, there is a constant effort by the private players to eliminate a PSU company. The government should draw lessons from what happened to Kingfisher and several other private airlines.
"Kindly issue necessary direction to the Civil Aviation Ministry to avoid talk of privatization of Air India and also handing over of Chennai and Kolkata airports," Raja said.
Maintaining that it had been "repeatedly proven" that Air India's losses were due to "the management practices inflicted on Air India by the government", he claimed a "definite linkage between the health of Air India and the massive predatory profits made by private airlines. Without the presence of Air India, the public will be totally exposed to the cartelization by private airlines."
The government had in the last fiscal released only Rs 5,000 crore instead of the earmarked Rs 8,745 crore to Air India and the remaining amount was yet to be released, he said.
With AAI spending huge sums to modernise Chennai and Kolkata airports, he said, "It does not make sense to hand over these airports to private operators.
"We have seen that the private operators of other airports like Delhi and Mumbai, have created economic turbulence in the civil aviation sector," by charging "huge fees" for services and collected thousands of crore worth user development fee from passengers, the CPI leader said.
"Instead of trying to privatize Air India and sell away the AAI airports of Chennai and Kolkata, the government can focus on how to help passengers in their travails and problems with airlines," Raja said, adding that the government should "focus on how to help passengers and not how to sell away assets".