Report by KEC correspondent
Having carried out the privatisation of Air India, the government has now planned to privatise all the major airports of the country. It is proposed to privatise 13 more airports. The privatisation of airports is yet another instance of the use of public money for building infrastructure and then handing it over to capitalists for earning profit. This is nothing but robbing working people to enrich the already rich few of the country. Airport workers of the targeted airports would be perfectly justified in fighting against these plans, and all of us should support them!
Having carried out the privatisation of Air India, the government has now planned to privatise all the major airports of the country. It is proposed to privatise 13 airports – six large profitable airports (Bhubaneshwar, Varanasi, Amritsar, Trichy, Indore and Raipur) along with seven small airports (Jharsuguda, Gaya, Kushinagar, Kangra, Tirupati, Jabalpur and Jalgaon) that are not profitable presently, through the PPP mode by March 2022.
These 13 airports are likely to get privatised at throw away prices, like Air India, as airports have incurred heavy losses during the last 18 months due to the suspension or curtailment of air services due to the pandemic.
The National Monetisation Pipeline has envisaged privatisation of 25 airports in the next four years, including the above 13 airports.
In 2019, six airports – Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Lucknow, Thiruvananthapuram, Mangaluru, and Guwahati – were privatised and the contract of all of them was awarded to the Adani group. Mumbai airport is also operated by the Adani group.
The four largest international airports of the country at Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad have been private since 2004. Thus, by March 2022, all the 23 major airports, except Kolkata and Chennai, will be privatised. The united fight put up by the airport workers of Kolkata and Chennai has not allowed their privatisation so far.
The government claims it is not selling airports but handing over their operation. But when the airport operation is handed over on 30 to 50 years long lease, it is nothing but privatisation. Actually it is an even better form of privatisation for capitalists as they do not have to invest any money while taking over the operations.
The government has now asked the Airport Authority of India to put capital on the development of small airports. This means that public money will be used to develop them and once they are developed fully, they would be handed over to private operators for earning profit.
The privatisation of airports is yet another instance of the use of public money for building infrastructure and then handing it over to capitalists for earning profit. This is nothing but robbing working people to enrich the already rich few of the country.
Airport workers of the targeted airports would be perfectly justified in fighting against these plans, and all of us should support them!
The capitalist class has no value for human life. Every day we see the intensity of exploitation is rising. If the workers don’t raise their voices the capitalists get a free hand to intensify exploitation. The struggle by the workers of Air India is so crucial. It has raised an alarm for other workers as well. Every sector is under threat and the only way out is our unity💪🏽
It’s great to see people of Aviation industries protesting we must learn from past and fight, to defeat Privatization we must have to unite our forces. All PSU’s workers and people must unite