BMS asks government not to go ahead with privatisation of aiports

Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, an affiliate of RSS on Thursday opposed government's move of privatisation of airports.

In a press release, BMS highlighted that hunger strike by Airports Authority of India (AAI) employees opposing privatisation of their airports entered second day today.

"The employees are protesting against privatisation of their airports, which they have built with hard work," BMS said.

The strike is being held under the banner of Indian Airports Kamgar Union (IAKU), an affiliate of Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh and part of Joint Forum of Unions and Associations of AAI.

The release said that following privatisation of Delhi and Mumbai airports, which were generating maximum revenue for AAI, the authority with the hard-working and maximum utilization of its skilled manpower, modernised the remaining airports and earned profit.

It said that for the last several years AAI is offering handful dividend to the government.

It said AAI Airports have started receiving Airport Council International awards.

The BMS said the government privatised six of its profit-making airports despite an all-round improvement in service quality and modernisation of airports by the AAI.

"In the meantime GOI/AAI has further decided to privatize another six more profit-making airports - Varanasi, Raipur, Indore, Bhubaneswar, Amritsar and Trichy Airports.

"The Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh being the largest Central Trade Union strongly supports the agitation of Joint Forum and calls upon the government to stop the process of handing over the three airports - Trivandrum, Guwahati and Jaipur," the release said.

It called for stopping privatisation of Varanasi, Raipur, Indore, Bhubaneswar, Amritsar and Trichy airports and holding immediate discussion with the forum's leaders to resolve their concern.

"BMS believes further privatisation of airports may lead to declaring AAI as a sick PSU," the release said.