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Rajya Sabha asks government to keep foreign airlines off domestic routes

Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairperson Najma Heptulla directed the government to give an assurance to the House that no foreign airlines would be allowed to operate on domestic routes and Indian companies would be given all protection.

Heptulla joined the sentiments of the members on an issue raised through a special mention by B S Ramoowalia (Independent), seeking protection for Indian Airlines which was operating in areas which were uneconomical. Nowhere in the world were domestic routes thrown open for foreign airlines and there was an effort in India to do this under some garb, Ramoowalia said.

Ramoowalia said Indian Airlines, which had assets worth Rs 50 billion and 50,000 employees on the payroll, should not have any threat from any foreign company.

He said 60 MPs had written a letter to the prime minister expressing their apprehensions over the move to declare Indian Airlines a sick company and a move by the Tatas to take over the traffic violating all existing guidelines. This was being done without a study or survey, he alleged.

The government should not do anything in haste and private airlines should not be allowed to encroach Indian Airlines routes which had just come out of the red, they said.

Gurudas Das Gupta (Communist Party of India) said Indian Airlines is a national carrier and nowhere in the world foreign companies were allowed to use national routes. John Fernandes (Congress) said there was a grand plan to sabotage the national airlines. Premchand Gupta (Rashtriya Janata Dal) and Nilotpal Basu (Marxist Communist Party of India) also expressed similar views.

UNI