Will Air India again have a career bureaucrat at its helm?

New Delhi: In all likelihood, Air India’s next chairman and MD could be another career bureaucrat. Despite making the right noises about infusing professionalism into the loss making airline, the government seems to be following the beaten path.

In a surprise move this evening, the Public Enterprises Selection Board declared all the three candidates it interviewed for the CMD’s post unsuitable.

The PESB had earlier provided some hope for selection of the next Air India CMD on merit by rejecting the suggestion of the Ministry of Civil Aviation to straightaway appoint a search committee and appoint a career bureaucrat again as the airline’s CMD.

So PESB’s decision today is a step perhaps towards continuing interference by the ministry in day to day affairs at AI since it will now again get to appoint the CMD. Today’s PESB panel comprised four members besides the civil aviation secretary as an observer. Is it possible that despite all these setbacks, the search committee which the ministry will now form will consider aviation professionals with a proven track record instead of hunting among bureaucrats once again? Seems doubtful.

Among the three interviewed by the PESB board today were Air India’s director personnel NK Jain besides Andhra Pradesh principal secretary RK Valaven and NTPC’s executive director Saptarshi Roy.

The term of incumbent Rohit Nandan, who has already been given two extensions, expires in August this year. In all likelihood, the joint secretary handling Air India in the ministry, who is also a representative on the airline’s board of directors, may become the CMD of Air India.

There has been some talk within the ministry about constituting an expert committee to steer Air India out of its losses with eminent names like Deepak Parekh and RC Bhargava among others being asked to join this panel. But what is the point of getting eminent personalities on board if the selection process of the top management remains questionable?

According to replies given by Minister of State Mahesh Sharma in Parliament today, the airline’s net loss has increased to Rs 6,279.6 crore in 2013-14 (provisional) against Rs 5,490.16 crore in 2012-13. So instead of improving, Air India’s financial performance has slipped in 2013-14 versus the previous fiscal.

Its operational performance is also slipping. Frustrated by a dismal on-time performance across the Air India network due to indisciplined crew, engineering and coordination issues, the ministry is already conducting a daily monitoring of all flight delays across the airline’s vast network.

So all said and done, there is an urgent need to professionalise the airline’s management and induce best practices from across the industry if Air India has to return to black any time soon.