Govt replaces member on DIAL, MIAL boards

The civil aviation ministry has removed Joint Secretary KN Srivastava, who was on the board of Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL) and Mumbai International Airport Ltd (MIAL), as the government's nominee and replaced him with a director-level official, Sandeep Prakash.

According to official sources, the decision was taken at the highest level, at the behest of Minister of Civil Aviation Praful Patel.

The government felt that in view of the recent dispute between the ministry and DIAL, it is better to have nominees who are not dealing with airports.

It is felt that the three nominees on the board of DIAL "" Srivastava and two Airports Authority of India (AAI) members "" are partly to blame for failing to protect the ministry and the AAI's interests.

The nominees, it is felt, decided to go along with whatever the company wanted and did not alert the ministry to the revenue share issue.

A ministry source confirmed the development and said the director, who would be on the board, dealt with the AAI and other such matters and did not handle policy relating to airports, which becomes a point of conflict of interest.