The Left parties have objected to the Centre’s move to privatise Chennai and Kolkata airports and Air India.
CPI National Secretary D. Raja urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to draw lessons from what happened to Kingfisher Airlines and drop the privatisation plans.
In a letter to the Prime Minister, Raja said the losses of Air India were due to the management practices inflicted by the Government.
“There is 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 cartelisation by private airlines,” the letter said.
Raja reminded the Prime Minister about the promise of bringing out a civil aviation policy.
He said the Centre was undertaking privatisation in bits and pieces without taking Parliament into confidence.
“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,” the CPI leader said, adding that private players were making constant effort to eliminate the public sector company. “The Government should draw lessons from what happened to Kingfisher and several other private airlines,” he added.
Raja said AAI had invested huge sums to modernise Chennai and Kolkata airports and it did not make sense to hand over these to private operators.
“Private airports have been charging huge fees for landing, all other services and have collected thousands of crores of User Development Fees,” he said, adding that the public was now hostage to the monopoly of private airports.