A parliamentary committee has expressed serious concern over the Pawan Hans Helicopter Limited (PHHL) turning red in spite of a "huge" growth potential and asked the state-run chopper firm to take urgent steps to reverse the trend.
The Committee on Public Undertakings, in its report tabled in Parliament today, said PHHL's net profit "drastically fell" from nearly Rs 36 crore in 2009-10 to Rs 18.50 crore in 2010-11.
The financial performance of the company "further deteriorated to turn red" by incurring losses of over Rs 10 crore in 2011-12.
The committee stressed that PHHL should take "urgent remedial measures to reverse its poor performance by optimising cost and efficiency, ensuring safety of operations and effecting speedy recovery of outstanding dues".
It also expressed dismay at the fact that "no scientific study" has been conducted to assess the manpower requirement of PHHL to meet its expansion and diversification plans.
The panel said it was disappointed over the "snail's pace" at which efforts are being made towards realising the potential of helicopters services in the tourism sector.
Observing that "a healthy symbiotic relationship" should be developed between tourism promotion and expansion of helicopter services, the COPU asked the public sector chopper company to exploit the potential for tourism and helicopter services in different parts of the country without losing any further time.
It pointed out that there were many sectors waiting to be tapped like the Buddhist tourist circuit, Mumbai-Shirdi and Hyderabad-Tirupati sectors.
