AAI employees protest privatisation plan of Chennai airport

CHENNAI:

Around 500 employees of the Airports Authority of India (AAI) staged a protest last week at the Chennai airport, questioning the government’s move to privatise four airports across the country.

Indian Conglomerate GVK, the GMR Group, Tata’s and German multinational Siemens were in town to assess the city’s airport for possible privatisation. The protest by AAI employees was in reaction to the inspection of Chennai airport by the private players.

The inspection was confirmed by Airport Director of Chennai, Deepak Shastri, and has been touted as an initiation before bids are placed by private companies to partake in operations, management and development of airports in Ahmedabad, Chennai, Jaipur and Kolkata. Civil Aviation Minister, Mahesh Sharma, had recently said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha, that the government had decided to develop four airports in the country, employing a public-private partnership mode. He specifically mentions in his reply, “There is no proposal for privatisation of Airports Authority of India (AAI) airports in the country.”

The government took this decision, among others, after receiving inputs by the task force on a financing plan for airports during the 12th Five-Year Plan period. This panel was sanctioned by the Planning Commission.

The government recently spent Rs 2,400 crores upgrading and modernising the Chennai airport. Apart from that, they cut the investment required from the private partner from Rs 1,200 crores in November 2013, when the Request for Qualification Forms (RFQ) were handed out, to Rs 492 crores in January 2015. This has led to many questioning the government’s decision to bring further privatisation to various airports across India when the cost factors have so drastically decreased.

Lengthening of the secondary runway, a major upgrade done by the government at the Chennai airport, has come under scrutiny after safety experts have debated the safety of the bridge built over the Adyar River to lengthen the runway. “There are a lot of damages and cracks on the bridge and water seeps through even on a sunny day,” said Captain A. Ranganathanan, a member of Civil Aviation Safety Advisory Council, in April 2013, while speaking to The New Indian Express. He pointed out that the bridge built on the Adyar River was not fit for airplanes to land and take-off. The secondary runway was closed by the airport authorities in 2009 to extend the length of the runway from 2,045 metres to 3,445 metres. The extension of the runway was completed in 2011, but the Directorate General of Civil Aviation has still not given clearance to use the runway because of lack of lighting systems and obstruction on the runway.

Issues have constantly plagued the Chennai airport for a long time now. After so much money being pumped in to improve the airport, the government’s decision to bring private partnership in airport control at substantially less prices was the major cause for last week’s protest.

The issue of employment by AAI at Chennai airport has also come into focus. Speaking to Morris Roy, Regional Secretary of the Southern Region of Airport Authorities Employees Union, we get to know that AAI employs only 900 employees at Chennai airport, almost half of the 1,700 employed at Delhi Airport. Various departments such as electricity management and repairs have already been outsourced by the AAI at Chennai airport.

“The recruitment by AAI at Chennai airport has drastically slowed down over the years. The coming in of private players in Airport Management will shift the focus to hiring by the private sector and thus further slowdown of recruitment under AAI,” he added.

The idea to start privatising airports had originally been initiated under the UPA 2 government, but the Manmohan Singh led government was not able to implement it before going out of power. The present Narendra Modi-led NDA government has blown fresh life into the initiative since coming to power at the Centre, last year.