CITU slams govt for strategic sale of AIATSL

The government is privatising national carrier Air India piece by piece after its efforts to do so as a whole failed to take off, the CITU alleged Wednesday.

In a statement, Left-backed Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) alleged that the government has decided to go for strategic sale of 100 per cent stake in Air India's ground handling subsidiary, Air India Air Transport Services Ltd (AIATSL) despite it being a profit making body.

"The government has embarked on privatising its profit making subsidiary AIATSL after its hell-bent efforts to privatise Air India as a whole failed to get any response", said the trade union body.

A ministerial panel Tuesday had cleared a proposal for strategic sale of AIATSL. The government is currently working on ways to revive the fortunes of Air India -- estimated to have debt burden of more than Rs 50,000 crore --including sale of non-core assets, said officials.

The CITU claimed that AIASTL has earned a profit of Rs 334 million in 2016-17 with a revenue generation of Rs 6.2 billion.

"The government is desperate in outright sale of strategic public assets and infrastructures by any means and at any cost, totally unconcerned of its disastrous impact on national interests", CITU said in the statement.

It further alleged that the BJP government at the centre was desperate to transfer public assets and infrastructure to private hands.

It pointed out that six major airports in the country in Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Lucknow, Guwahati, Thiruvananthapuram and Mangalore have been handed over to private entities despite them being modernised with huge expenditure from the national exchequer through Airport Authority of India.

"It is nothing but a design to loot the infrastructure and exploit the huge amount of land assets at their disposal for private profit", added the trade union body.

The CITU asked the working class to unite and fight such anti-national moves of sell out and privatisation.

It added that the working class will give a befitting reply to alleged retrograde move of the government through massive country-wide general strike on January 8 and 9, 2019.