Airport Authority of India’s (AAI) headquarter in New Delhi and airports across India witnessed peaceful protest against the government’s policy of airports privatisation under public private partnership (PPP) model on Monday.
Thousands of AAI’s employees and officers participated in the protest organised by the Joint Forum of AAI Unions and Associations across India. The protest will continue till September 6.
The officials had shown their disagreement against the privatisation of the airport by holding hour-long “peaceful” demonstration during lunch hours by wearing black badges.
The Forum has termed the governments move as “arbitrary and unilateral” and done in a “hasty” manner.
According to the official release by Joint Forum of Union and Association of AAI, “The privatisation is definitely going to affect every employee of all the cadre’s executives/non-executives with regard to service condition and other benefits.”
Last year the Modi government decided to privatise airports in Jaipur, Lucknow, Thiruvananthapuram, Mangaluru and Guwahati for their development through the public-private partnership model. Adani group with the highest bid won the rights to run these six airports.
Like the previous aggressive bidding for national airports, the Adani claimed the contract for the six airports by quoting a per passenger (domestic) fee of ₹177 for the Ahmedabad airport, ₹174 for Jaipur, ₹171 for Lucknow, ₹168 for Thiruvananthapuram, ₹115 for Mangaluru and ₹160 for Guwahati.
Besides the six airports, the government plans to privatise other 20-25 airports in the next phase.
Also Read: Adani group bags lease rights for six non-metro airports
