fallen out of favour. In its bid to replace Mr Menon expeditiously, the government first appointed E. K. Bharat Bhushan for a week, and then brought in Arvind Jadhav, overlooking his lack of knowledge of the sector. It was only after Rajiv Pratap Rudy, in his capacity as an opposition party MP, sought all the documents relating to Mr Jadhav’s appointment under the Right to Information Act that the flaws in his appointment came to light. And the government hastily replaced Mr Jadhav with Rohit Nandan, who was then a joint secretary in the ministry, without going through the Public Enterprises Selection Board. What are we to conclude from these instances but that the selection process is nothing but a farce?
Interestingly, if we apply the condition of domain knowledge as an eligibility requirement for the post of chairman, the appointment of V. Thulasidas too comes into question. Mr Thulasidas had worked in the Civil Aviation Ministry as an under-secretary nearly three decades before he was appointed chairman. At that time, Air India enjoyed a semi-monopolistic status and the aviation sector worked according to a very different set of rules. Before he was made the chairman, his last assignment was as chief secretary in the state of Tripura. How could this have been considered to be sufficient experience for running an airline? Running the administrative machinery in a state and managing a commercial entity such as Air India call for vastly different skill sets!
Given that the ministers appropriated the right to appoint and remove the chairmen at will in a manner that was neither transparent nor consistent, the people who came to the post were generally more beholden to the appointing individual than the organisation. Thus, they would tailor their tenure to suit the needs of the minister rather than those of Air India.
The appointment of IAS officers with no serious or permanent stake in the airline has led to the abandonment of the airline’s interests. They offered little resistance when the minister either subtly or openly advised the withdrawal of flights from certain sectors to facilitate private airlines or when the issue of vantage position for lounges and check-in counters at airports came in and airlines close to the minister got preference and Air India was relegated to the less visible areas. None protested but many employees privately complained that they felt disillusioned at the way the airline was being given step-motherly treatment. This discrimination was also evident when it came to allocating slots and landing bays at major airports. The best bay locations were reserved for private airlines, and foreign airlines were given access to key cities. There was none to place Air India’s point of view to the people concerned.
Most IAS incumbents have preferred to work with a small coterie of officers who did not allow the chairman to meet others while letting the chairman believe that he was doing a great job. This was disastrous from the airline’s perspective because the CEOs believed that they had functioned admirably while the true state of the airline that emerged only after they had left presented a different reality. Every chairman left Air India a little worse than he had found it when he had joined, but when in office, they were made to believe that the airline was at its peak level of performance. Intriguingly, most CEOs relied on the same set of qualities in their trusted people: unflinching loyalty, no outspokenness, obedience without discussion or dissent and the ability to work without questioning the merits of their decisions.
The constitution of the Air India board, too, became an arena for constant experimentation. It was routinely filled with luminaries from the corporate sector and political heavyweights, but few managed to make an impact. The fault perhaps lay with the manner in which the appointments were made—some were bestowed the position as a favour while some were brought in to
Interestingly, if we apply the condition of domain knowledge as an eligibility requirement for the post of chairman, the appointment of V. Thulasidas too comes into question. Mr Thulasidas had worked in the Civil Aviation Ministry as an under-secretary nearly three decades before he was appointed chairman. At that time, Air India enjoyed a semi-monopolistic status and the aviation sector worked according to a very different set of rules. Before he was made the chairman, his last assignment was as chief secretary in the state of Tripura. How could this have been considered to be sufficient experience for running an airline? Running the administrative machinery in a state and managing a commercial entity such as Air India call for vastly different skill sets!
Given that the ministers appropriated the right to appoint and remove the chairmen at will in a manner that was neither transparent nor consistent, the people who came to the post were generally more beholden to the appointing individual than the organisation. Thus, they would tailor their tenure to suit the needs of the minister rather than those of Air India.
The appointment of IAS officers with no serious or permanent stake in the airline has led to the abandonment of the airline’s interests. They offered little resistance when the minister either subtly or openly advised the withdrawal of flights from certain sectors to facilitate private airlines or when the issue of vantage position for lounges and check-in counters at airports came in and airlines close to the minister got preference and Air India was relegated to the less visible areas. None protested but many employees privately complained that they felt disillusioned at the way the airline was being given step-motherly treatment. This discrimination was also evident when it came to allocating slots and landing bays at major airports. The best bay locations were reserved for private airlines, and foreign airlines were given access to key cities. There was none to place Air India’s point of view to the people concerned.
Most IAS incumbents have preferred to work with a small coterie of officers who did not allow the chairman to meet others while letting the chairman believe that he was doing a great job. This was disastrous from the airline’s perspective because the CEOs believed that they had functioned admirably while the true state of the airline that emerged only after they had left presented a different reality. Every chairman left Air India a little worse than he had found it when he had joined, but when in office, they were made to believe that the airline was at its peak level of performance. Intriguingly, most CEOs relied on the same set of qualities in their trusted people: unflinching loyalty, no outspokenness, obedience without discussion or dissent and the ability to work without questioning the merits of their decisions.
The constitution of the Air India board, too, became an arena for constant experimentation. It was routinely filled with luminaries from the corporate sector and political heavyweights, but few managed to make an impact. The fault perhaps lay with the manner in which the appointments were made—some were bestowed the position as a favour while some were brought in to
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