Air India set up four committees headed by Functional Directors last year to review the issue of productivity link incentive (PLI), with the unions, including that of pilots, rejecting a proposal to slash the allowance by half.

"The four Functional Directors, who are heading the committees, will initiate discussions on the PLI issue soon," Air India sources told PTI here.

As part of the discussions, the committees would invite members of unions, representing various section of workers, to elicit their views on various aspects of the issue, they said.
The Committees would also discuss the wage agreements that have been signed with the unions over a period of time, the sources said.

The PLI burden on all employees accounts for almost 50 per cent of the airline's total salary bill of Rs 3,100 crore per annum.Air India plans to rationalise this amount along with wages as part of its efforts to turn around the company, which has been posting losses since the merger of the two erstwhile state-run carriers in 2007.

But two parliamentary panels have blamed "flawed" policies of the government and the Civil Aviation Ministry for the airline's financial mess and observed that any reduction in employees wages was unwarranted.

Maintaining that wage cost of the airline was not a major burden on the merged carrier, the Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture headed by CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury had said the company made losses not due to employees' inefficiency but due to "wrong government policies and decisions".