Dear Shri Suresh Prabhu ji,
It is shocking to note that the Govt of India has decided to privatise six more airports of the country now functioning under Airport Authority of India through so called PPP route. The airports proposed to be privatized at the moment are at Trivundrum, Guwahati, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Lucknow and Mangalore as per the reports received.
The CITU hereby records its vehement opposition to such a move of privatization of these six airports. You are aware, all these six airports have been modernized through huge investment from public exchequer under the supervision of Airport Authority of India and the quality of modernization of these six airports are no way inferior, if not superior, to that made in the airports, of Delhi, , Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bangalore under private sector operators, thereby decisively proving competence and capability of the public sector Airports Authority of India.
And now after modernizing these six airports with public money under AAI, handing over them to private hands through PPP route tantamount to a undue bonanza to private players at the cost of public exchequer, besides being totally unjust and extremely unfair which may please be taken note of.
Such retrograde and unfair decision has created serious resentment among of mass of the employees of the Airport Authority of India which has been reflected in overwhelming majority of employees of AAI endorsing through strike ballot, the resolve of the Airports Authority Employees Union to go for industrial strike against such privatization move.
The union accordingly decided to go in for strike in AAI from 20th February 2019 and the country’s trade union movement has extended full support to their struggle against privatization.
In view of the foregoing, I request you to please appreciate the gravity of the issue and in particular the impropriety and blatant unfairness of the Govt move for privatization of these six airports and appropriately intervene so that the Govt refrains from such retrograde move of privatization of airports in the interests of fairness and propriety and to avoid industrial unrest.
Soliciting expeditious corrective action from your end,
With regards,
Yours sincerely,
( Tapan Sen )
General Secretary
Shri Suresh Prabhu
Minister of Civil Aviation
Govt of India
New Delhi
