As ever, PSUs carry the load during poll time

New Delhi: From the conduct of free and fair elections to providing accommodation to almost half of the newly elected Lok Sabha members, the Government always turns to the public sector.
The state owned Air India (Domestic) did 28 sorties between Kolkata and Agartala with an Airbus A-320 aircraft to transport security personnel. An Airbus A-320 aircraft can carry 145 passengers.
Charter rates
Sources told Business Line that the Election Commission had negotiated a Rs 4.5-crore deal with the airline for operating 32 charter flights from Kolkata.
But the airline will be paid a bit less as the Commission eventually needed only 28 flights to ferry the security personnel.
Air India operated the service from Kolkata to Agartala as a “ferry flight,” which means that the aircraft flew empty and on the return trip carried the security personnel, the sources said.
The flying time between the two cities is about 50 minutes and the airline’s normal charter rates are about Rs 4.5 lakh an hour.
The sources indicated that while the airline might have made some money on the operation, it was unlikely to be anywhere close to what it could have earned on a normal commercial charter flight.
Material transport
The airline also blocked space for the transportation of election materials called camp bags on 31 routes, including Delhi, Hyderabad, Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi and Bangalore sectors.
22/05/09 Ashwini Phadnis/BusinessLine

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

Categories: NACIL May 2009