New Delhi, Oct 19: Ahead of the proposed merger of Air-India and Indian, the government today warned the staff of the two state-owned carriers to either perform or perish while announcing the setting up of a group of ministers to finalize the alliance within this fiscal.

“I am personally not very happy with the way the two carriers are performing… Government support is only to an extent. Beyond this, the airlines would have to retain their standards of performance,” Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel told reporters here.

“Government will not remain a mute spectator to the goings on in both the carriers”, he said after receiving the first newly-acquired airbus A-319 at the IGI airport here.  While refusing to elaborate on what he meant by “goings on,” he said the GoM set up by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to finalize the path for the merger would be headed by Finance Minister P Chidambaram, Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel said here.

The GoM will have Law Minister H R Bharadwaj and Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia as its members, besides Patel.

The Civil Aviation Minister said the government was not engaging in a blame game with the airlines, but was “looking at the totality of a lot of things which should have been done and have not been done”.

“We would not like to see things going in a drift. I want to tell each and every employee of Indian and Air-India to come up to the expectations of the people”, the minister said asserting that “by the end of this fiscal, the two carriers will merge into a single entity to become a strong airline to take on domestic and international competition”.

His tough-talk came in the backdrop of rumblings among the staff of both carriers on several issues including parity in pay, career progression, postings, productivity-linked incentives and others.

The unions, which represent an overwhelming percentage of the staff, have also demanded that they be made party to the merger and decision-making processes.
While the Civil Aviation Ministry has already asked the managements of Indian and Air-India to consult their staff before a final decision was arrived at on the merger, Patel also made it clear that “there will not be a single retrenchment” of any employee of the two airlines.

Asked whether the government would allow the two carriers to make fresh aircraft acquisition demands in view of the prevailing aviation scenario, he said it was entirely up to them to take a call.

“If they require more aircraft, they should come with the proposal to the government and we will look into it positively”, he said.

Meanwhile, the Accenture-led consortium, appointed as consultants by the government to prepare a roadmap for the merger process, has submitted its recommendations that include four options.

source: zeenews

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