Govt 'deceived' on Airports privatisation issue: CITU

New Delhi, Jun 9 (UNI) The Centre of Indian Trade Unions today criticised the Government move to transfer 35 non-metro airports into private hand, saying this deviated from its earlier position that privatisation of Delhi and Mumbai airports would help pool in resources for the Airports Authority of India (AAI) to develop non-metro airports.

The idea behind privatisation of non-metro airports, leaving out Kolkata and Chennai, was apparently aimed at pressurising the non-Congress governments of West Bengal and Tamil Nadu on the issue, a statement issued by the CPI(M)'s trade union wing said.

''In a clear case of deceit and deception, the Government has shifted from its earlier position that privatisation of Delhi and Mumbai airports was necessary so that the AAI could pool resources to develop/modernise the 35 non-metro airports.

''CITU had no illusion that this was a pretext to privatise all the major revenue earning airports of AAI and make AAI redundant in the Civil Aviation Sector,'' it added.

Reiterating that the ''main objective'' behind the privatisation move was ''to allow commercial use of prime land by estate developers masquerading as private partners'' it cited government orders allowing the private sector to take up jobs of Terminal Side and City Side development at Mumbai and Delhi airports.

The CITU said the government should stop such ''mindless'' efforts towards privatisation.

The Committee on Infrastructure, headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, had yesterday given in-principle approval for modernisation of 35 non-metro airports, without taking a final view on the manner to proceed on modernisation of Kolkata and Chennai airports.

UNI VN MP HT1918