Urban Mirror Correspondent
New Delhi, August 7: The Lok Gathbandhan Party (LGP) today said massive mismanagement has led country’s national carrier Air India to the brink of disaster and demanded inquiry to fix the responsibility for the crisis. The LGP said that Parliamentary committee has recommended for giving another chance to AI for revival for some emotional reasons like its role in natural calamities and evacuating Indians from war zones. However any move to keep the carrier alive under the state control should be from business point of view, as continuous heavy losses and increasing debt have turned out to be heavy burden on state exchequer.
The spokesman of the party said here on Friday that the House committee has stalled the disinvestment move on the ground that prevailing market situation and financial health of AI is not conducive for sale. The spokesman said while accumulative losses stood at Rs 47000 crore the debt burden has gone up to Rs 48000 crore. Pointing out that such a huge debt has become unsustainable, the spokesman said the airline, which has been facing massive losses after the merger of Indian Airlines in 2007, should be made competitive to control the chaotic situation.
The spokesman said the Comptroller and Auditor General of India ( CAG) had last year pointed out numerous holes in the government version that Air India is on a path to turnaround its fortunes. The spokesman said the NDA government’s turnaround plan and financial restructuring had failed to achieve objectives and the failure resulted in less revenue generation leading to requirement of more shot-term loan. The spokesman said that less income in passenger revenue, low monetisation of assets, non-availability of proper aircraft, mismanagement in granting bilateral agreements with foreign countries, loss making international operations and mismanagement of manpower are some of the important factors which has pushed the carrier into mess and they needed to be addressed properly. The spokesman said the government urgently required to chalk out effective plan with full honesty and transparency and also fixing the responsibility in the matter.
