On a day when former civil aviation minister Praful Patel is being blamed for benefiting private airlines in the wake of a CAG report, he came out to defend himself, saying these are "conspiracy theories" that should be "rubbished".
"The hallmark of civil aviation is opening up of the sky. Earlier, people were ashamed of talking about Indian airports. Now, look at the change that has come about in the aviation sector. When Manmohan Singh (who was the finance minister in the P.V. Narasimha Rao cabinet) liberalized the economy, he faced similar allegations," Patel, who is in the eye of a storm over the CAG report that has called the Air India expansion plan a huge waste, told Headlines Today on Thursday.
"People will always say something. Show me a single route where the AI was stopped from flying, giving space to private jets," Patel said.
Asking why people of India should be "denied the right to fly", Patel said at a time when the domestic sector has seen 300% growth and the international sector has witnessed 200% growth, it was but natural to think of the modernization of the AI fleet, some of whose aircraft were "20-years-old".
09/09/11 India Today
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