Chennai: The sudden removal of V P Agrawal as the Airports Authority of India chairman is expected to give a leg up to privatization of Chennai airport. Alok Sinha, a joint secretary in the civil aviation ministry, is now the AAI chief. The AAI chairman was called at home and told to hand over charge to the joint secretary.
The ministry has been pushing to privatise six public sector airports, including Chennai and Kolkata, which were recently modernised at huge cost.
The privatisation process is now expected to be quicker because the ministry can either ignore or bulldoze opposition from employees. Agrawal had initially suggested joint management of the airports with a private party before he fell in line with the ministry's decision for complete privatisation.
Despite knowing that the post of the AAI chairman would fall vacant on December 31, the ministry did not start the process for having regular incumbent in the position. Instead, it sent Alok Sinha's name to the cabinet committee on appointments headed by the Prime Minister.
An AAI official said it would now be easy to privatise the airport as the ministry could take decisions on behalf of AAI. "This may be a reason to place AAI under a joint secretary of the ministry."
25/01/14 V Ayyappan/Times of India
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The ministry has been pushing to privatise six public sector airports, including Chennai and Kolkata, which were recently modernised at huge cost.
The privatisation process is now expected to be quicker because the ministry can either ignore or bulldoze opposition from employees. Agrawal had initially suggested joint management of the airports with a private party before he fell in line with the ministry's decision for complete privatisation.
Despite knowing that the post of the AAI chairman would fall vacant on December 31, the ministry did not start the process for having regular incumbent in the position. Instead, it sent Alok Sinha's name to the cabinet committee on appointments headed by the Prime Minister.
An AAI official said it would now be easy to privatise the airport as the ministry could take decisions on behalf of AAI. "This may be a reason to place AAI under a joint secretary of the ministry."
25/01/14 V Ayyappan/Times of India
