Employees and officers of the Airports Authority of India on Friday staged a demonstration at major airports across the country to protest against the privatisation of Mumbai and Delhi airports, but flights and other operations remained unaffected.
The protests, led by AAI Employees Joint Forum comprising various airport unions, were carried out against the recent decision of the empowered Group of Ministers to "sell or privatise" the two airports "in the name of modernisation", union leaders, including forum convenor M K Ghoshal, claimed.
Ghoshal told demonstrators outside the civil aviation minister headquarters that the government should "consider our alternative plan" submitted to it to modernise the two airports, which earn a large share of AAI revenue.
The meeting in New Delhi was addressed by leaders of BMS, HMS, CITU and AITUC, besides left MPs Dipankar Mukherjee (CPI-M) and Abani Roy (RSP).
The GoM had earlier this week approved a proposal to reduce foreign direct investment from 74 to 49 per cent for re-structuring and modernisation of the two airports.
Addressing the gathering, Mukherjee said, "neither will privatisation take place, nor will the government fall", hinting that Left parties would be able to convince the United Progressive Alliance government on the matter.
In the same vein, Abani Roy said, "If the government is determined to go ahead with privatising profit-making PSUs, then Left parties would have to sit together and decide on its strategy".
The Left leaders and those from the trade unions extended support to the agitating employees, with Mukherjee and Roy saying that transparency should be maintained in the measures the government wanted to take in airport restructuring.
The letter and spirit of the Common Minimum Programme of the ruling UPA should not be violated, they said.
Demonstrations were also held by AAI employees at Meenambakkam airport in Chennai, Chhatrapati Shivaji Airport in Mumbai and Netaji Subhash Bose International Airport in Kolkata.
The Forum includes Airports Authority Employees Union, AAI Officers Association, Air Traffic Controllers' Guild and AAI Engineers' Guild.
Forum sources they would intensify their agitation if they did not get a proper response from the government and said they were planning to hold another demonstration in the next few days.
An Indian Airlines spokesperson said none of their flights were affected due to the agitation, while his Air-India counterpart also maintained the same.
