New Delhi:
The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism & Culture chaired by Sitaram Yechuri puts a question mark on the merger of Air India & Indian Airlines. The 51st report of the committee which deals with issues arising out of the merger & its impact on Civil Aviation Sector says: "The decision to merge Air India & Indian Airlines was taken in haste, without required homework & consultations. As a result the entire process has been unduly delayed. It has given rise to many problems concerning financial, administrative & operational."
The report further states: "Two major objectives of merger 'economies of scale' & 'increased leverage' couldn't be achieved without proper synergies. The Air India fleet consists of Boeing aircrafts being normally used for long distance international destinations, the Indian Airlines fleet consists of Airbus aircrafts which are used for the domestic destinations. Operational crews, engineers &technicians cannot be cross utilized on another."
The entire aircraft acquisition program lacked transparency, says the strongly worded report. "The committee has questioned the logic behind purchasing a large number of aircrafts when the aviation industry was under huge losses due to global economic recession. Reasons for going ahead with purchases by the Ministry despite Air India & Indian Airlines not having the capacity to support it, remains unknown. There was no budgetary provision for this purchased & Rs 50,000 crores had to be raised through loans only. The entire aircraft acquisition program lacked required transparency."