JOIN USCPI, CITU oppose Air India sale, say it's 'free gift' to Tatas
The CPI and CITU on Saturday opposed the move to sell Air India to the Tatas, saying it goes against national interests and that it was being sold off virtually free of cost.
In a statement, the CPI said that it was opposed to the sale of Air India as it is "against the national interest".
While acknowledging that Air India was mismanaged by successive governments, it said, in spite of this, the airline has done stellar services during every emergency either man-made or natural as a government carrier.
Also Read | Tatas to fly Air India again but turbulence aplenty
"Government has sold all assets at a very low price since the carrier had started making operative profits from 2015-16. This is in tune with the government policy of selling national assets for private profit. It is wrong to sell assets created with public funds for private profits...Air India is the pride of the nation. The Modi government should reconsider its distress decision," it said.
Air India has an efficient workforce and it has the potential to emerge as one of the best air carriers in the world, it added.
The government on Friday announced the Tatas as the winner in the bidding for Air India. The Tatas' winning bid was for Rs 18,000 crore.
Also Read | Indian Aviation Guild welcomes Air India's takeover by Tatas
The CPI(M)-backed Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) condemned the Modi government’s "anti-national decision" to hand over the national carrier, which is "one of the prides of India", to a "private monopoly house...virtually free of cost, rather on negative payment to national exchequer".
The Group of Ministers headed by Home Minister Amit Shah has approved the deal for a "paltry sum" of Rs 18,000 crore. Out of this Tata would own the debt liability for Rs 15,300 crores and the rest of Rs.2700 crores alone would be paid as cash to the Centre.
"The sale-deal with Tata envisages that the government will absorb the debt burden to the tune of Rs 46,262 crore out of the Rs 61,562 crore but the assets created by such debt would be handed over to Tata in lieu of only Rs 18000 crore. Besides this bonanza for Tata, as per this deal, Air India will give Tata access to more than a hundred planes, thousands of trained pilots, crew and lucrative landing and parking slots all around the world. This is nothing but a free gift," a CITU statement said.
"It has demonstrated the worst ever perverted economic deal of this fascistic political dispensation having an organic nexus with corporate capital for frittering away national assets in favour of their corporate masters for the song," it said.
Expressing concern over the fate of existing employees, the CITU said that Air India had 12,085 employees -- 8,084 permanent and 4,001 contractual workers. Air India Express 1,434 employees are working. "The deals mention only one year remaining. Then the rest of their service period would be at the mercy of Tata," it said.
CITU urged the working class in general and its affiliated unions, in particular, to resist such "anti-national activities" of this government and "expose their anti-national credentials and pseudo-nationalistic postures along with these right reactionaries’ nexus with corporate capital".
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