Displaced AAI employees may be offered VRS

New Delhi: The Airports Authority of India (AAI) is planning a voluntary retirement scheme (VRS) for its workers displaced as a result of the privatization of the New Delhi and Mumbai airports.
AAI is the government’s airports regulator and runs most other airports in the country.
The New Delhi and Mumbai airports, ranking among India’s busiest, were privatized by the Union government two-and-a-half years ago.
The proposed VRS is expected to cost at least Rs1,000 crore and will cover some 4,000 AAI employees at the two airports. Under the terms of privatization agreements, the costs have to be shared by the private consortia running them.
The airports were handed over as a public-private partnership in May 2006 to a GMR Infrastructure Ltd-led consortium that runs Delhi International Airport (P) Ltd (DIAL), and GVK Infrastructure and Power Ltd-led consortium that runs Mumbai International Airport Pvt. Ltd (Mial), with a condition that the two firms will retain the AAI employees—numbering at least 2,000 each—for the first three years.
Under the agreement, DIAL and Mial were to offer and try to absorb about 60% of these employees. But so far, just 5% of the workers at these two airports have accepted the offer by the airport companies. By May, most will return and join AAI, resulting in a huge surplus pool. AAI, according to data of March last year, had 19,180 employees, including those at the Delhi and Mumbai airports.
21/01/09 Tarun Shukla/Livemint

To Read the News in full at Source, Click the Headline

Categories: Airports Jan 2009