 "AAI chairman against privatisation of airports, sacked")
Mumbai: In a late night development,chairman of the state-run Airports Authority of India, V PAgarwal, was removed from his post apparently because of his"opposition" to privatisation of more airports in the country,sources said.
Alok Sinha, who is currently joint secretary in theAviation Ministry and handling the airports, has been givenadditional charge of the post, according to government orders.
Agarwal was resisting the privatisation of six moreairports, including Kolkata and Chennai. But the government isin a hurry and wants the process to be completed before goinginto elections. For this reason, Agarwal had to lose his post,sources said here.
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The government had in September last year decided to allow private parties to pick up 100 per cent equity stake inoperation and management of the six airports - Chennai,Kolkata, Guwahati, Ahmedabad, Jaipur and Lucknow - through thepublic-private partnership (PPP) mode.
Incidentally, Agarwal’s five-year term as AAI chairmanhad expired last December but he was granted an extension.Even national airports unions are bitterly opposed togiving out government airports to corporate players, allegingthat the move would reduce the already shrinking revenue ofthe AAI due to the privatisation of country’s two busiestairports - Mumbai and Delhi.
The unions have also asked the government to hand oversmall airports in the country to private players fordevelopment, instead of giving away high density trafficairports.
A parliamentary panel had last year also opposedprivatisation of government airports in the country.
“Privatisation of airports is a great disservice beingdone to the country by this government. Public assets arebeing placed at the disposal for private operators…
“Undue haste is being shown in the process…we want toknow from the government why it proceeded with that sort ofhaste as that leaves a scope for lots of issues to beinterpreted,” CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury, who is chairmanof the Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture,had earlier said after submitting a report on airportsprivatisation to Parliament.
PTI