New Delhi [India], Sept 25, : Airport Authority of India (AAI) on Wednesday called a hunger strike across the country to protest against the privatisation of the airports. The joint forum of AAI unions along with other associations will continue their protest for the next three days till September 27.
AAI people have come out on streets after the Centre decided to privatise six aerodromes for operations, management and development purpose through public-private partnership (PPP) model and announced the projects in cities such as Lucknow, Ahmadabad, Jaipur, Mangaluru, Thiruvananthapuram and Guwahati.
"We called hunger strike today to send our message to the government to stop privatisation of airports because all airports currently under AAI are making profit business and we are capable to handle the airport in a professional manner. We have the support of the joint forum and all AAI employees supported us and we urge the government to roll back the decision on privatisation of airports," said Balraj Singh Ahlawat, General Secretary of Airport Authority of Employees Union (AAEU).
"We have appealed many times to the government through many channels, but the government is not listening to our grievances to roll back their decision to stop privatisation of airports. We are here to pan India hunger strike against the government's decision. If government will not listen to our voice, we are going to unite and call convention in Delhi on November 15, with other Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) like Banks, Coal, Steel, Port - Dockyard, Oil, Insurance Sectors who are currently facing the same kind of situation and will move towards Jan Andolan," said All India president, Indian Airports Kamgar Union (IAKU), Harendra Tiwary while speaking to here.
Notably, the government of India is set to privatise 20-25 more airports in the next phase, these airports increase with annual passenger traffic around 1 and 1.5 million.
AAI employees union today are protesting under a joint forum and Clerk, Operational, Electrical, Finance, Airport Fire Service, Engineering and Officers Association of AAI are supporting the hunger strike against the privatisation of airports.
( With inputs from ANI )