IAF on standby as strike looms

A section of Airport Authority of India employees today threatened to disrupt air traffic from tomorrow to protest against the government's decision to privatise the Delhi and Mumbai airports.

All-India Joint Secretary of Airports Authority Employees' Union Nitin Jadhav said the AAI staff would not report for work from 10 am tomorrow. But he said it should not be termed a "strike". "As we said earlier, action will be taken after a meeting with the joint AAI union forum," he said.

In response, Home Secretary VK Duggal wrote to chief secretaries, DGPs and commissioners of police of states, asking for more security.

"The Centre is taking all steps to ensure the safety of the working staff and passengers at airports in view of the agitation by some segments of the employees of AAI," he said.

It is learnt that special security is being provided to air traffic control staff, who will not strike work, and for power supply installations. A defence ministry spokesman said all IAF air traffic controllers and ground control staff were on standby.

Tension was palpable as the day began, since a section of AAI threatened yesterday to disrupt air services across the country and filed a special leave petition in the Supreme Court challenging the privatisation move.

All of today, the civil aviation ministry's headquarters in New Delhi's Rajiv Gandhi Bhavan, which also houses the AAI, was dotted with police and paramilitary personnel, as hundreds of airport employees gathered there for a lunch-hour demonstration.

Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel, however, assured the employees that there was no threat to their jobs.

He said both the GMR and GVK consortia have told the government that they would absorb 60 per cent of the existing AAI employees at the two airports. The others will be absorbed by the government.

The CPI(M), an ally of the ruling United Progressive Alliance, warned the government that privatisation of airports could lead to a problem comparable with the Rajiv Gandhi government's problems vis-à-vis the Bofors payoff case.

"The Rajiv Gandhi government had to go due to the Bofors scam and the Manmohan Singh government may also meet the same fate if it goes ahead with its plan to hand over the airports to the private hands," said CPI(M) politburo member Sitaram Yechury, while addressing AAI workers outside the Rajiv Gandhi Bhavan.

In Mumbai, baton-wielding policemen surrounded about 300 airport employees who squatted at the airport, raising slogans against Patel and the UPA government.

But Airlines said they did not expect flights or operations such as baggage-handling, ticketing and catering "" run by their own employees "" to be disrupted.

The two state-owned airlines, Air-India and Indian, said they had equipped their flights with step ladders, instead of aerobridges, to facilitate boarding and disembarking.

The Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), in charge of airport security, is taking all steps to tackle any eventuality. The government is also understood to have asked the Indian Air Force to stand by for any contingency.

An AAI official said a highly-confidential contingency plan had been communicated to the government to tackle agitation.

The AAI is also believed to have sought fire brigade personnel and emergency vehicles, in addition to beefing up of security inside airports and outside.

"No flights will be disrupted due to the strike threat raised by some employees," said Mumbai Airport Director R Treasurywallah.

In Kolkata, the Left Front bastion, airport workers stopped carrying out routine duties like cleaning and maintenance but no flights had been disrupted.

Sources in the office of the airport director said if basic safety and fire-fighting measures could not be maintained, airlines would have no option but to stay away from the airport.

Workers said they would step up their agitation if the government brought outside help.

The mood at the airport was tense and most workers were outside the terminal, but passengers were not being harassed.

In contrast, calm prevailed at the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in Hyderabad "" no flags, no slogans, no banners. No airport operation was affected. But visitors were not being allowed inside the airport for security reasons.

Although the AAI union in Hyderabad has about 500 members, only 30-odd seemed to be sitting on a dharna on the first floor of the airport, so as not to disrupt operations at the passenger terminal on the ground floor.

The Bangalore airport functioned normally without any hint of disruption.