Advertisement

The 30000 employees of Air India and Indian Airlines need not worry about job security after the two entities merge into one in four months time. Union Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel assured Parliament on Friday that interest of the employees including compensation packages and status would be protected. No one would be sacked either, he said.

Patel said that the interests of the employees have been "foremost in our mind" and the government was "committed to ensure that all legitimate employee interests, including their current compensation and status are protected."

He assured both the Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha, "There will be no retrenchment and all employees will continue in the merged company."

In the last few months, Patel had met leaders of all central trade unions to sort out any apprehension about retrenchment. In fact, he interacted with leftist unions like the All India Trade Union Congress and Centre for Indian Trade Unions after they had threatened to stall the merger if employees' interests would be compromised. The minister had assuaged their fears and promised to give in writing his assurances.

Patel, who tabled a statement in Parliament on Friday, said that in order to keep the exercise smooth, the integration of manpower would be completed in a phased manner, on the basis of transparent and objective criteria. He added that "a well-defined Grievance Redressal Machinery will also be put in place."

Patel said the amalgamation process would be carried out in phases over two years and its technical formalities put in place in the next 16 weeks.

"It is estimated this decision would result in the net benefit of Rs 600 crore at the end of third year of merger," he said

"The technical and procedural formalities for merging the two airlines would begin immediately and one company with one name, one brand, one logo, one code and single financials is expected to be in place within the coming 16 weeks," he said.

Maintaining that the new airline would be comparable to any other major airline "at least in this region," Patel said it would have a fleet of about 112 aircraft, with both international and domestic footprint.

Email author: sutirtho.patranobis@hindustantimes.com