Don't privatise Air India, CPI urges Centre

Hyderabad: CPI national general secretary Suravaram Sudhakar Reddy on Wednesday said that the Union government was making attempts to privatise the public sector Air India citing the excuse that it is incurring huge losses.

Speaking to the media here, Mr Reddy said since coming to power, the BJP-led NDA government has been making moves to divest all public sector undertakings one by one, regardless of whether they incur profits or losses.

He said even profit making ONGC, BHEL and SAIL are being privatised by the government.

Mr Sudhakar Reddy demanded government appoint a committee to look into the cause of losses by Air India losses and come out with alternative measures instead of almost deciding to shut shop.

He said Central government, while allowing all private airlines to operate on key routes, was at the same time not allowing expansion of Air India and even not reimbursing huge amounts to it by way of promised subsidies and concessions. This led to Air India accumulating losses due to increase debt burden and mounting interests, he said.

He also demanded state governments to raise their voice against Central government’s unilateral decision on imposing restrictions on animal slaughter which is a state subject.

“The Centre is trying to usurp the rights of elected state governments by way of interfering in their domain which is quite unconstitutional in federal polity,” Mr Reddy said.