Left walks out of RS on Airports Privatisation issue

New Delhi, Mar 17 (UNI) Alleging a land scam in the way Mumbai and Delhi airports were privatised, an angry Left today walked out of the Rajya Sabha even as Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel was seeking to assuage their concerns.

Participating in a Short Duration Discussion on the procedure followed by the Government for restructuring these airports, the Left members maintained that the task of modernisation of both airports should have been given to the Airports Authority of India (AAI) as it was better equipped for it.

Dissatisfied by the Minister's reply to their concerns, the Left members staged a walkout en masse.

In his reply to the Discussion, Minister Patel wondered why the Left and the Opposition continued objecting to a Joint Venture managing the country's two major airports. ''This, in fact, allows the Airports Authority of India to develop other airports in the country and even upgrade those existing,'' he contended.

Pointing to almost fifty per cent of the air traffic in the country centering around Mumbai and Delhi, the Minister said this was not a good sign for the healthy growth of aviation in the country where the number of people who travelled by air in a year was just about the numbers travelling by train in a day.

He said with rising aspirations of people and a substantial growth in the economy, aviation had become an important sector and was no longer an elitist concept.

More and more people were now taking to the air and civil aviation recorded 39 per cent growth during last year.

However, the Minister observed that for healthy growth of the sector it was essential for other airports to be developed as well as Mumbai and Delhi.

He said as many as 35 airports were to be developed to international standards. The Airports Authority of India had been assigned the task of improving the infrastructure facilities at as many as 126 airports, he added.

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