By IANS,
New Delhi : The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) Tuesday asked the government to reverse its decision to allow the Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL) to charge “development fees” from passengers.
The government announced Monday that DIAL would charge from March Rs.200 from domestic passengers and Rs.1,300 from international passengers due to the company’s inability to raise money from lenders and the market.
The CPI-M politburo pointed out in a statement that when the Left parties had opposed the privatisation of Delhi and Mumbai airports, the government had cited the resource crunch of the Airports Authority of India (AAI) vis-�-vis the capability of GMR, which heads DIAL, and other private firms to mobilise resources.
“Under the circumstances, the UPA (United Progressive Alliance) government cannot bail out GMR with public money in violation of the Operation, Management and Development Agreement (OMDA) entered between AAI and DIAL which specifically binds DIAL to complete the job for the Commonwealth Games by 2010.
“The (party) demands that the government immediately rescind its approval to the levy of user charge by DIAL. The passengers cannot be asked to pay for the failure of the private company.”