Thaindian News

New Delhi, May 1 (IANS) Expressing concern over the inconvenience to passengers due to the strike by a section of Air India pilots, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Sunday sought a probe into the “mismanagement” of the airline and said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh should answer who “was responsible for the mess”.

BJP spokesman Rajiv Pratap Rudy said that Air India’s chairman and managing director Arvind Jadhav “reports directly to the prime minister’s office” and alleged that the ongoing crisis could be ploy to shut down the national carrier.

Referring to reports about the government was mulling a “partial lookout”, he said there was nothing like a partial lockout.

“Is it a ploy to shut down Air India? The prime minister should tell who is responsible for the mess. Has it been decided that pilots will be used as an excuse to hide the loot and close the airline? Who will benefit if the airline is closed,” he asked.

Rudy, a trained pilot and a former civil aviation minister, said the government had asserted that merger of Air India and Indian Airlines and purchase of new planes was a way to make the national carrier profitable.

He noted the prime minister had said three years back that the functioning of national carrier will be improved and it will be again become pride of the country, but the losses of the national carrier had been mounting since 2007 merger - from Rs.450 crore soon after the merger, it had risen to Rs.16,500 crore.

“The management gave different reasons each year for mounting losses. First they put it on recession in the Indian market, then on an increase in oil prices and still later on increased competition,” Rudy said.

He said that while the management was putting the blame on the pilots for the loss to exchequer due to strike, the government had told earlier parliament that the airline was making a daily loss of Rs 20 crore.

“A loss of Rs.600 crore every month is being caused without pilots getting into it,” Rudy said.

He said that disruption of services due to the strike, which entered fifth day Sunday, had caused severe inconvenience to the passengers.

Asserting that he was not a friend of pilots and they could be guilty, Rudy, however, said they had been raising the issue of pay parity since 2007 merger and the agreements had not been complied with.

He said pilots had signed agreements to fly 80 hours a month but they were being used only for 45 hours a month.

Rudy said that private airlines need 1,000 trained pilots and if 800 pilots come out of Air India, these companies will benefit.

He said that private airlines had increased fares since the strike by pilots and the government’s attitude was helping the private industry.

“Is it a deliberate conspiracy,” he asked.

Posing questions to Manmohan Singh, Rudy said the prime minister should answer who was responsible for the merger and failure of the merger of the two airlines.

“Who is responsible for the sell-out of profitable routes flown by Air India. What happened to equity infused in the airline? Who was responsible for sell out of airline property of Rs.1 lakh crore? Who was responsible for annulling the process of recruitment of air hostesses that led to cancellation of about 700 flights in the last two years,” he asked.

Rudy also alleged that some senior officials had been sacked by the present management.

“There is a big scam…We feel there is ploy to cover mismanagement… I think a bigger scam than Commonwealth Games and 2G is being covered up in the name of pilots by targeting them,” he said.

Rudy said that the standing committee of parliament on civil aviation had also indicted the present airline management but Jadhav had displayed a “despotic attitude”.