Pay retirement benefits to AAI workers, DIAL and MIAL told

New Delhi: Cracking the whip on private airport operators of the Delhi and Mumbai airports, the ministry of civil aviation has issued an order recently, asking them to pay Rs 460 crore to the Airports Authority of India as the retirement benefits of the authority’s nearly 900 employees — who weren’t absorbed by these airports — by March 31, 2010.
The GMR Infrastructure-led consortium that runs Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL) and the GVK Infrastructure and Power-led consortium that runs Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL) had been dilly-dallying making these payments, which they had previously agreed to in accordance with their contractual obligations under the Operations, Maintenance and Development Agreement signed with AAI in 2006.
As per the agreement signed between these two private airports and the AAI separately, each was to absorb 60 per cent of the total AAI workforce deployed within three years, failing which they were to cough up the retirement benefits for the remaining. Of the total 2,400 AAI employees who were to be absorbed by these two airports, 1,500 have conceded. The remaining 900 — around 600 at the Mumbai Airport and around 300 at the Delhi airport — are still on AAI’s rolls, forcing the authority to explore the option of transferring these employees elsewhere or offering them a lucrative voluntary retirement scheme.
29/12/09 Smita Aggarwal/Indian Express

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Categories: Airports Dec 2009