Modi govt bats for privatisation of 6 more airports

Agencies
October 19, 2019

New Delhi, Oct 19: Undeterred by staff protests, the Civil Aviation Ministry would seek Cabinet approval for privatising half a dozen more airports by the first week of December.

The six airports up for privatisation are Varanasi, Amritsar, Bhubaneswar, Trichy, Indore and Raipur.

"The Airports Authority of India (AAI) board has approved the plan. We will seek in-principle approval of the Cabinet now. Once it is approved, the bidding process would start," said an official source.

The Ministry hopes to complete the bidding process by the end of this financial year.

The move to bid out more airports to private companies has come close on the heels of government privatising six airports. Gujarat-based Adani Enterprises was the highest bidder for all the six airports. While the Union Cabinet has approved leasing out of three airports - Ahmedabad, Lucknow and Mangaluru - to Adani, the other three airports - Jaipur, Guwahati, and Thiruvananthapuram - are currently on hold due to some pending issues. In case of all the airports, the lease period is 50 years.

Defending the government decision to privatise more airports, an official said that AAI would get more revenue as a result of this and focus on the development of smaller airports.

"The six airports which are being leased out generated a combined profit of Rs 220-250 crore for the AAI. After privatisation, the AAI would get Rs 900-1,100 crore in a year without making any expense," the official said.

It, however, may be noted that government, for the last two years, has been making claim over the AAI's almost entire profits requiring the state agency to part with it as dividend.

Unionised staff of AAI has been protesting against government move to privatise airports fearing job losses and early retirement. They staged a sit-in at Jantar Mantar in the Capital to protest against the government move.

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News Network
April 11,2020

New Delhi, Apr 11: With 40 deaths and 1,035 new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, India on Saturday witnessed a sharpest ever increase in coronavirus cases, taking the tally of the infected people in the country to 7,447, as per the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Saturday.

According to the official data, among 7447 COVID-19 positive cases, 6,565 are active cases and 643 are cured, discharged and migrated and 239 patients who have succumbed to the virus.

Maharashtra has reported the highest number of cases in the country which stands at 1,574, including 188 cured and discharged and 110 deaths, followed by Tamil Nadu with 911 corona positive cases.

On the other hand, the national capital has reported 903 cases, which include 25 recovered cases and 13 deaths.

While 553 have detected positive for the infection in Rajasthan, Telangana has 473 corona cases and Chhattisgarh and Chandigarh have reported 18 cases each.

Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, that borders the national capital, has 431 and 177 cases, respectively.
Kerala, which reported India's first coronavirus case, has 364 confirmed cases.

The newly carved union territories -- Ladakh and Jammu and Kashmir--- have 15 and 207 cases, respectively.

The least number of COVID-19 cases have reported from the northeast region of the country. While Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, and Tripura have only 1 corona positive case, Assam has 29 people infected with the virus, which is the highest in the region.

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Agencies
May 31,2020

New Delhi, May 31: Congress leader Kapil Sibal on Sunday questioned the Prime Minister on how much money has been given to labourers from the PM-CARES Fund.

"I would like to ask Prime Minister Modi, 'Can you tell us how much money did you give to labourers from your PM-CARES Fund?' I request him to answer this question. Many people died during this period, some died while walking, some died in the train, some died of hunger," Sibal said while addressing a virtual press conference.

The senior Congress leader further asked how much ex gratia did the Prime Minister give to the labourers who died in the corona crisis while negotiating the lockdown.

"I refer you to Section 12 of the Disaster Management Act. It says that ex gratia assistance on account of the loss of life and also assistance for the restoration of livelihood should be provided by the government. Did the government give ex gratia assistance to people who died in the crisis? The act also mentions special provisions for widows and orphans. The government should clarify how much assistance they gave to such people," he said.

Sibal said that the government should keep aside its agenda for the last six years and concentrate on making pro-poor policies.

"In the coming days, our economy is going to go into the negative territory as also confirmed by RBI. There are 45 crore labourers in our country. What will be their state? We have to look at our future. That is why we want to request the government that the agenda that they have run over the last six years should be kept aside and that government should care about the poor and draft policies for them," the Congress leader said.

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News Network
June 5,2020

New Delhi, Jun 5: India registered its highest spike in COVID-19 cases with 9,851 more cases and 273 deaths reported in the last 24 hours. The total number of cases in India reached 2,26,770 including 1,10,960 active cases, said the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

The Ministry informed that 1,09,462 persons have been cured/discharged/migrated while 6,348 people have succumbed to the disease so far.

Maharashtra has so far reported 77,793 cases, more than any other state in the country, while the total number of active cases in the state stands at 41,402.

In Tamil Nadu, 27,256 cases have been detected so far while Delhi has reported 25,004 coronavirus cases.

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