Friday, February 03, 2006

Airport chaos

One of my friends is heading back to India today. I told him "You need to stay maximum 5 minutes in the Mumbai aiport". Why? Because, he and his wife may die of the stench if they stay any longer.


Its incredible that the Left has allowed its unions to run riot and disrupt the normal functioning of the aiport so terribly . One can understand peaceful protests and demonstrations, but by actively blocking off electricity and water supply and hiding away the trolleys, the protests have gone too far. The Central Government should get such people arrested and ensure that there are enough security personnel (are they IAA employees as well?; in that case, home guards will do) and police manning the airports. This should be treated like a localized emergency and the immediate issues should be addressed.


The few airports that I have visited around the world, Mumbai airport is by far the worst. Even Luton, which is an international airport (for planes flying to tourist destinations in Europe) in a tiny village in English countryside, is far superior to Mumbai. This is not official airport rating site, but still, quite reliable and look what it says.


But I also totaly agree with Dilip. When you have a rehaul or a change being implemented, we need to be careful about educating the involved and affected parties about the change. It could be viewed as a threat of livelihood by them, as in this case, and the employees won't take it lying down. Even here, many employees view the Indian IT companies as a threat and unfortunately, things like orientation about offshoring, role change, team dynamics etc. are not explained to the existing employees. That increases their insecurity about the whole outsourcing phenomenon.


Anyway, so, government and the new management should ensure that they talk to the employees and try to address their concerns. This is good news. If the unions are still unwilling to listen, then go ahead and take action against the trouble-mongers.

3 comments:

Dilip D'Souza said...

Can I say a heartfelt thank you? You capture just about exactly what I wanted to say, and I am glad you understood. I too believe the blocking of emergency services and so forth means they took this too far, and I hope (though I'm not optimistic) that there's action against those union leaders for this.

Abhi T said...

I am stunned. The celebrated writer and blogger, The Dilip Dsouza has commented on my blog.
I must be really improving.
Really, thanks Dilip.

Anonymous said...

I believe left in India has become anti-development group. They want to impose their ideology on the nation with just 12% seats in Lok Sabha. Its good to know that Govt has issued some strong statements in this regards. Hopefully, airport modernization of all 35 airports would take off from here on.