The Hindu Business Line : Bailing out airlines

While the Government should not go to the extent of letting the troubled airlines industry go down the drain, despite its mismanagement, it should not be over-liberal either (“Aviation formula gone sour,” Business Line, October 29).

The Finance Minister has announced that two south-based banks will grant assistance to the Jet-Kingfisher alliance. The Petroleum Minister, a news report says, was ‘irked’ by the CEO of the National Aviation Company of India Ltd (Nacil) (re)announcing the offer of granting leave without pay to some 15,000 surplus staff, and another paper talks of his being censured by the government.

Interest-free loans amounting to Rs 5,000 crore, sought by the aviation industry, may be a tall order and, if they are granted, the government may find other stricken industries queuing up for similar assistance.

In all the discussions the Jet-Kingfisher alliance has generated in the media, one issue that has remained in the background is: what has the government done to make the Nacil, the merged entity of the Air India and Indian, a success in these two years after the merger?

The Government dithered on its decision to issue Nacil shares to the pubic and it may have to wait for quite a while to be able to implement this decision. Meanwhile, it needs to infuse funds to make Nacil a success. That will take greater precedence than opening the purse strings liberally for the Jet-Kingfisher alliance.

It was hoped that the Parliamentary Committee attached to the Civil Aviation Ministry would have reviewed the progress of the state-owned airlines’ merger, but it appears to have confined its findings to user charges.

To sum up, people expect the government to come clean on what steps it has taken to make Nacil a success and what more it intends to do while announcing concessions to the stricken private airlines.

S. Subramanyan Mumbai