The indefinite non-cooperation movement called by the Airports Authority of India Employees Union (AAIEU) from Tuesday has been called off.
The development happened on Thursday after minister of civil aviation Praful Patel met representatives of the unions and CITU leaders and requested them to withdraw the strike assuring them that their concerns would be addressed.
?I requested them to withdraw the strike and explained to them that the government has certain commitments to the airport developers among other difficulties. Added to this with the PIL filed against the airports there are also some legal difficulties,? Patel said.
The airport employees had called the indefinite non-cooperation movement on Tuesday midnight against the closure of the existing airports at Hyderabad and Bangalore to make way for the new greenfield airports, and also in protest of the government?s airport privatisation programme.
?They are removing the profitable airports from the hands of the Airports Authority of India (AAI) putting a question mark on the viability of the public airport developer,? a union official said at the beginning of the strike.
?We will do whatever is necessary to make sure that the future of AAI and its employees is not impacted,? Patel assured after meeting representatives of the unions and CITU leaders.
Patel met CITU leaders MK Pandhe and Dipankar Mukherjee and Airports Authority Employees joint forum convener MK Ghoshal. Civil aviation secretary Ashok Chawla and AAI chairman K Ramalingam were also present at the meeting.
?We talked to the minister on the issues and he assured us that interest of the AAI employees and AAI will be protected. As pointed out, the previous NDA government signed the concession agreements for the two new airports at Hyderabad and Bangalore with the private developers. Therefore contentious issues like closure of existing airports were not properly addressed. The minister told us that new contracts would not have such clauses. He also said that the ministry would find a method to make sure the interest of AAI employees at these airports are protected?, Ghoshal said. Since the strike began, flight schedules have mostly been unaffected, but cleanliness of the airports was badly affected.
