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Aviation ministry may deploy IAF personnel to combat ATC strike

Our Correspondent in New Delhi

Air travel for thousands of passengers in the country has become a nightmare as the work to rule agitation by 850 air traffic controllers entered its ninth day on Thursday. The ATCs want their salaries to be doubled.

Senior aviation ministry officials and the Director General of Civil Aviation met on Thursday to review the situation. Sources said one proposal under consideration is to deploy military personnel to man air control towers all over the country.

"The option to use Indian Air Force and other military personnel to take over the duties of the ATCs has been considered. But we do not want to take a hasty decision. We are still negotiating with the ATCs to end their strike," a ministry official told Rediff On The NeT.

However, Aviation Minister Ananth Kumar is away in Bangalore and Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee is attending the G-15 summit in Jamaica, so a decision may be deferred by a day or two. Airports Authority of India chairman D V Gupta is away abroad.

Ministry officials said there is no question of giving into the demand for a hefty pay hike. Making ATC wages on par with pilots will only result in the latter going on strike to demand higher salaries, they fear.

A few years ago when the government increased the salaries of ground maintenance engineers, flight engineers went on strike, demanding higher wages than their colleagues on the ground. Later, pilots demanded higher salaries than flight engineers.

Nearly 850 ATCs manning airports across the country want a 100 per cent hike in their salary, free foreign travel allowance, priority housing, hike in educational allowance for children.

The ATCs also want a two per cent hike in duty allowance per hour.

Currently, an ATC draws a salary between Rs 35,000 and Rs 40,000 per month. An AAI employee draws less than half that amount. ATCs claim that pilots draw between Rs 200,000 and Rs 400,000 per month and therefore, their demand is justified. ATC officials say an air controller's job is stressful and therefore there is a case for a rationalisation of their pay scales on par with pilots.

The aviation ministry is apprehensive that any hike in ATC wages could result in various sections of airport employees making similar demands, and paralyse airports across the country.

"Since the strike is risking lives and causing immense damage to the country and the economy, the only alternative is to call off the ATC strike unconditionally," a ministry official said.

The wrangle between the AAI and ATCs has remained unresolved as the Authority has neither established a back-up arrangement to handle daily flights nor has Minister Ananth Kumar made any serious effort to solve the strike.

Passengers on domestic and international flights have had a harrowing time these past eight days. Flights have been delayed by several hours.

ATC Guild officials say the agitation was inevitable. In the last two years, they say they have demanded a raise several times, but numerous representations to the government have been of little avail.

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