Communist Party of India (CPI) national secretary D Raja has urged prime minister Manmohan Singh to not privatise Air India and the airports at Chennai and Kolkata.

In his letter to the prime minister, Raja said, "Such proposals conveyed to the media create demoralisation among the employees.... While equity was not being infused in Air India in accordance with the turnaround plan, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) is also being systematically undermined."

Raja pointed out that though the government earmarked Rs 8,475 crore for the airline in the last fiscal, only Rs 5,000 crore has been released thus far.

He said that after spending Rs 4,000 crore from the public exchequer to modernise Chennai and Kolkata airports, it does not make sense to hand over the airports to private players. "We have seen that the private operators of other airports like Delhi and Mumbai have created economic turbulence in the civil aviation sector by charging huge fees for services and collected thousands of crore worth user development fee from passengers,” he told the PM.

According to Raja, instead of trying to privatise the national carrier and sell the AAI airports among other assets, the government can focus on helping passengers and commuters.