The Northeast Congress Coordination Committee (NECC) has taken strong exception to the BJP-led Central government’s decision to privatise the Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport in Guwahati, the lone international airport of the Northeast.
According to the Central government decision, the Guwahati airport along with Jaipur International Airport, Rajasthan and Kerala’s Thiruvananthapuram International Airport has been mortgaged to Adani Enterprise Ltd (AEL), the flagship entity of Adani Group, for 50 years to achieve ‘self-reliance’.
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Asking the Centre why valuable infrastructures created by the Congress government were being privatised, NECC general secretary Padi Richo on Sunday said the decision to do so “has proved the incapability of the present BJP regime”.
“If such privatisation moves continue, who knows our country could be mortgaged in the name of self-reliance too,” Richo said while adding that such mortgaging step is humiliating for the nation.
“Sadly, the BJP government headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not even capable of managing the profitabilily running public sector undertakings like the three airports which were under the Airport Authority of India (AAI),” he said.
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Responding to the BJP’s question on what the Congress had done during the 60 years of its rule, Richo said: “Most of the important infrastructures across the country, including airports was developed by the Congress.”
“These infrastructures are now being sold out by the BJP,” he alleged.
Richo, a former Arunachal Pradesh Congress Committee chief and minister, also took a dig at the Centre for allegedly being incapable of managing the country’s finance.
“Arunachal Pradesh lost Rs 2,600 crore during the 2019-20 fiscal year, Rs 850 crore during the first quarter of 2020-21 (April, May and June) and another Rs 950 crore loss is expected in the second quarter (July to September). This type of financial bungling had never taken place during the Congress-led UPA regime,” he claimed.