Squandering huge amount of money for Air India?

By O.J.George

Kottayam: Reports have been appearing in the media about Air India, the national carrier, seeking governmental assistance to the tune of Rs 15,000 crore. Nay, it is prepared to prune the figure to Rs 10,000 crore of the tax-payers’ money.

Air-India chief Arvind Jadhav briefed Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel after consultations with civial aviation secretary M.M.Nambiar and financial adviser Bharat Bhushan and the whole lot seem to have got Prime Minister’s principal T K A Nair for a package.

Ultimately, Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh was also met, who it appears is not whole-heartedly attuned to issuing such a huge bail-out package.

The explanation for the sagging finances and image of the national carrier is that it lost Rs 5,000 crore during the last financial year. At present the loss is a mere Rs 15 crore daily!!!

Last year, Praful Patel and team were successful in placing orders for 111 new aircraft at an estimated cost of Rs 45,000 crore. When the craft for which orders have been placed are delivered, perhaps there would be huge cost escalation as well.

Airlines the world over have been putting orders for new aircraft in limbo in view of recession and bad performance. Here Air India is not concerned about it at all and is proceeding with the orders for the new planes, which should run services to every nook and corner of the country as well as abroad.

The ways of the airlines are often murky. There was one Capt Gopinath who was quite successful in convincing the world that his idea of no-frills airline and cheap fares was for people’s welfare. People need only spend slightly more than the train ticket for taking to the skies.

The same gentleman, reaping a harvest, sold off his Air Deccan to Vijay Mallya of Kingfisher. We do not know what Jet Airways is going to do after registering fall in income. Its staff members have already been suffering.

Whatever the mega plans of airlines, people’s money should not be frittered away.
When money is thrown away like this, one should vet the state of affairs elsewhere.

The state-level bankers’ meeting in Kerala reported rise in NRI’s deposits, but the credit-deposit ratio has gone down.

The gentlemen in the banks are not amenable to giving easy loans. Governments were eloquent on liberalised loans from banks, particularly for students undertaking higher students in the form of educational loans. In practice, students bemoan that banks are not prepared to shell out money easily.

Mind you, when the economy is liberalised like ours now, we should urgently think about formulating a social security scheme at the federal level encompassing the whole population like in the West. Those who are jobless and without an income should be taken care of through social security net. There should be a social security number for each person.

Today Nandan Nilekani of Infosys has been appointed chairman of the commission to allot identity card and number to all Indians. This exercise should ultimately become the national social security formulation and number.

Meanwhile, precious money should not be wasted on any entity, be it airlines or otherwise, which mismanages funds and come to a cropper.