Probe Patel, Chidambaram roles in AI plane buys: CPM

New Delhi: CPM on Friday demanded an investigation into the role of former civil aviation minister Praful Patel and former finance minister P Chidambaram who chaired the Empowered Group of Ministers in the purchase of 68 aircraft for Air India. The party also said the whole matter should be investigated by the CBI.
In a detailed reaction to the CAG report on Air India, CPM said it clearly indicted the then civil aviation minister for the state of affairs of Air India, whose accumulated losses since 2006 have crossed Rs 20,000 crore and its current debt burden amounts to over Rs 46,000 crore.
CPM said the CAG report only confirmed the findings of the parliamentary Committee on Public Undertakings (CoPU) which had noted in its March 2010 report, "The Committee notes with concern that the merger of the erstwhile Indian Airlines and Air India was an ill-conceived and erroneous decision neither arrived at by the two airlines on their own accord nor mutually considered by them to be in their best interests." The CoPU report further recommended that the loss attributable to the merger of IA and AI should be recouped by the government "as the decision of merger was a policy decision spearheaded by the ministry-in-charge".
10/09/11 Times of India

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Categories: Air India Sep 2011