New Delhi, July 02: Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel on Thursday clarified that there were no plans to retrench any employee from AI and that the latter has been asked to provide a restructuring plan in next 30 days.
Air India on Thursday said it was
working on the formalities to disburse salaries to lower grade
employees by Friday as per the agreement reached with the
unions last week.
"Air India is working towards paying wages and salaries
to its employees in the lower grades on July 3 as part of
the decision finalised at a meeting with the unions last
week," an airline spokesperson told.
He said since the payments were being made only to those
employees as a special case on July three instead of the
earlier decision of doing so in the middle of the month, "the
process of identifying all eligible employees in various
departments on various grades is taking time."
The formalities to make the payments through the
electronic clearance systems were also being complied with,
the spokesperson said, refuting reports that the salaries
would not be paid tomorrow.
Following several rounds of discussions in the past two
weeks, the unions had withdrawn their call for a day's strike
after the management agreed to disburse salaries of around 70
per cent of the workforce by tomorrow. The unions had been
protesting the management's earlier decision to pay the
salaries by July 15.
"The airline has been facing a financial crunch for the
past few years. The borrowings of Air India have risen steeply
from Rs 6,550 crore in November 2007 to Rs 15,241 crore in
June this year," Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel told Lok
Sabha today.
In reply to a question, he said the borrowings have gone
up largely due to servicing of debt on account of purchase of
new aircraft and its operating losses which have compounded
due to the present economic recession and the high oil prices
last year.
He said the National Aviation Company of India Limited
(NACIL) has been advised to formulate "a concrete proposal for
equity induction and provision of loans".
Patel also made it clear that there was no plan to
retrench any employee of Air India.
Bureau Report
First Published: Thursday, July 02, 2009, 15:43