PTI

New Delhi, Mar 23: Employees' representatives of the Airports Authority of India (AAI) on Wednesday asked the government to clarify whether Delhi and Mumbai airports fell within the ambit of the official tripartite panel set up on the issue of modernisation of airports.

Following insistence on the issue by the AAI Employees' Joint Forum representatives in the nine-member tripartite committee, its Chairman and AAI's Director (Planning) A K Misra adjourned the meeting till March 29.

Forum Convenor M K Ghoshal, who is a member of the panel, told reporters after the meeting "we sought a written clarification from the Civil Aviation Ministry on whether the two metro airports fall within the purview of this committee. The Chairman adjourned the meeting for a week to get this clarification".

He said the employees representatives also sought clarification on whether the 'Alternate Plan' for revamping the two metro airports, submitted by the Forum last year, had been accepted or rejected by the government. "If rejected, we want to know the reasons for it".

Ghoshal said they reiterated their position that no existing airport should be closed down where a greenfield airport was developed.

The tripartite committee was set up by the Ministry in the wake of the four-day strike by airport employees in February.

Besides Misra and Ghoshal, other members are H S Bains, T K Das and Ajit Dubey (all from AAI), Y P Gautam, D K Kamra and Nitin Jadhav (repesenting the Forum) and Hemant Rao from the Ministry.