JOIN USAir India employees allege pressure to vacate official colony, claim water supply stopped: Report
Residents of the Air India Colony in Delhi's Vasant Vihar alleged that they are being pressurised to vacate the colony, with water supply being disconnected and other basic amenities hit in the locality.
The government had asked around 2,000 employees living in the staff colonies at Vasant Vihar and Kalina in Mumbai to vacate their accommodations by July 26, 2022, six months after AI’s divestment, or face penalties.
After the airline was sold to Tata Group, the government had on August 9 said that the employees could continue staying in the company’s residential properties “for six months or till the property is monetised, whichever is earlier”.
“The water was stopped yesterday evening; it was done once earlier too. They locked the pump and went away. We had to bring drinking water from outside,” Jaba Sen, a resident and general secretary of the resident welfare association told The Indian Express. “Even the security has been decreased from around 15 people each in two shifts to just four people to guard 350 families.”
“We hold AIHCL (Air India Assets Holding Limited) responsible for it; we are ready to do what the court orders,” she said.
Around 350 families live on the 32-acre land. Of the 800 flats in the area, around 350 are occupied, Sen told the publication.
“Many people have, in the past few weeks, left because of the pressure that money would be deducted from their provident fund, ” she claimed.
According to the residents of the colony, there are two cases related to it in the Delhi High Court. One is of the engineering department staff being asked to vacate despite their continued employment in the airline, and another of the employees who were taken in by Tata after the purchase, who claim that though their employment status has changed, the space is of the government, and so they should be allowed to stay, the report said. The hearing on the case is on October 10.