Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh opposes Air India sale, asks govt to think it over

RSS-affiliate Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) on Tuesday opposed Air India sale, and urged the government to think over this decision.

"Ever since inception, public sector undertakings have been the driver of growth and value creation. Perhaps they are the only enterprises in India that fulfilled all the objectives laid out according to the Industrial Policy Resolution of 1956," a BMS statement said.

The union also said that it is unfortunate that they (PSUs) are being sold in the name of resource mobilization to fund social spending.

The union is of the view that selling PSU to private players is not going to help the government in mobilizing resources and funding social spending because privatization does not free the government from its responsibilities.

There are certain segment in which both public as well private sector enterprises are not being able to perform and there are cases in which private players failed to generate own resources, they simply took the money in form of loans from banks (many in the public sector) and then they failed to repay the loan, deepening non-performing asset crisis, it added.

The PSU also pointed out that while calculating profit and loss of Air India one need to think of the fact that it has been operating many of the low-profit or loss-making routes only to serve the passenger and connecting people with one another promoting national unity - in which any private player will not be operating.

Privatisation of Air India can have a cascading impact; like many of those airports which will lose the flight may face further crises, many of the emerging cities may face the crisis of connectivity etc, it added.

Keeping these issues in mind the BMS urge the government to think hundred times before going for the disinvestment of Air India, the union said.