Parliamentary panel raps AI for staff rationalization drive

New Delhi: A parliamentary committee has criticized the national carrier Air India for focusing more on rationalizing manpower costs which is lower than expenses on other heads like fuel and picturing them as “a villain” behind the plight of the airline.
Observing that as many as 34% of the airline’s cost is incurred on fuel and only 16.2% on manpower, the Committee on Public Undertakings (Copu) asked the ailing Air India how much of cost will it be able to optimize by merely rationalizing manpower costs.
The Copu, headed by senior Congress leader V Kishore Chandra Deo, feels that this issue should be given a “serious look because whatever statements we see in the newspapers, even in the last couple of weeks, it is hinging on manpower cost....Manpower is being made a villain”.
This is “creating a kind of situation which is also demoralizing your workforce,” the panel told National Aviation Company of India (Nacil), the holding company of the national carrier.
The Copu also recommended that to make the merger of the two airlines effective, Nacil should integrate the employees of the erstwhile Air India and Indian Airlines on the basis of scales of pay and not on their designation to ensure there is “no loss of emoluments and feelings of alienation” among the employees of these organizations.
Even the aviation ministry acknowledged before the Copu that “manpower integration has not happened.
21/03/10 PTI/Live Mint

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Categories: NACIL Mar 2010