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Centre's nod to Tata airline will make India resurgent, argues MPs' group

A group of parliamentarians on Friday came out in full support of the proposed Tata airline project and said the treatment meted out to this proposal by the government ''does not increase the confidence of industry and investors in India''.

The United Parliamentary Group, in a letter to the prime minister, said the Tata airline proposal was in line with the civil aviation policy and met the socio-economic obligations as required by the government policy for domestic airlines.

''We look forward to a fair, forward-looking and leadership stance from you in this crucial long-term decision,'' they said.

The parliamentarians said the government's open skies policy must be evenly implemented with regard to all private airlines and not in an obviously 'discriminatory' manner. All proposals contained within the government aviation policy with the Director General of Civil Aviation guidelines should be evenly dealt with. ''The Tata proposal, we believe, is in this category''.

They said the government needed to take a bold initiative to create a positive impact on the confidence of the industry and investors in India, including foreign investors who are beneficial to India.

''Despite the high success of the Resurgent India Bond issue, this is unlikely to happen without a lead project being identified as a sign of resurgent India. We believe that one such project could be the Tata airline project.''

The signatories to the letter included Jayant Malhoutra, convener of the United Parliamentary Group, Y K Alagh, Nirmala Deshpande and K S Duggal.

UNI