`Lobbying Caused Delay In Clearance'

Sections of the government yesterday blamed the strong lobby of MPs belonging to almost all political parties for bringing about a situation in which the Tata group had to withdraw its airline proposal. They saw the hand of a private airline behind the controversy.

While Union civil aviation minister Ananth Kumar asserted that the government still had an open mind on the project, a senior BJP leader said even though efforts were being made to increase competition in the marketplace, "politics and politicians are being used to avoid competition".

Setting up an expert group to go into the issues raised by MPs and trade unions is considered a ploy to create hurdles in the group getting clearance for the project. The BJP leader noted the Tata group had met all the criteria set by the government for such projects.

"There is no reason whatsoever to defer the project. It had also withdrawn the Singapore International Airlines from the project. It is not so much the official carrier as the private airlines that feel threatened by the Tata project. Even from the goodwill point of view, there is no reason to deny permission to Tatas, the pioneers of civil aviation in the country", he said.

According to him, the Tata project could not be perceived as a threat since it had plans to begin with only seven aircraft while others were in the field with far more aircraft. Every argument has been cited to deny permission to the project, but the main aim has been to "protect the turf" of some private airlines, he alleged. Among those have who opposed the project are three former civil aviation ministers Ghulam Nabi Azad, CM Ibrahim and Jayanti Natarajan.