The Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), a trade union affiliated to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, on Tuesday said it “strongly opposes the selling of Air India”, and asked the government to re-think “this decision a 100 times”.
Union Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Puri on Monday announced the government’s plan to sell 100% stake in Air India.
The BMS, in its statement, said it was “unfortunate” that public sector undertakings were “being sold in the name of resource mobilisation to fund social spending”. “We hold a strong view that selling PSUs to private players is not going to help the government in mobilising resources and funding social spending because privatisation does not free the government from its responsibilities,” it said.BMS said it was a “flawed” idea. When calculating Air India’s profit or loss, it was important to factor in the airline’s operation in low-profit or loss-making routes in order to connect people, which a private airline would not do.
“Privatisation of Air India can have a cascading impact — like many of those airports which will lose flights may face further crises, many of the emerging cities may face the crisis of connectivity etc,” the union said.
