May 24, 1999

The issue is not appointing governors, the issue is appointing them without acrimony

It would be silly to reduce the BJP-led Government's decision to remove the governors of West Bengal and Arunachal Pradesh to yet another debate on the powers of a caretaker regime. When I.K. Gujral's lame-duck ministry appointed governors in 1998, the Election Commission upheld its right to do so. Raj Bhavan's role is largely ornamental. Therefore changing governors cannot be as sacrosanct as, say, the signing of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty may be. While the constitutionality of the recent action cannot be faulted, the timing certainly can. Since the term of A.R. Kidwai in Calcutta expired in August 1998 and that of Mata Prasad in Itanagar did so two months later, the Home Ministry could well be hauled up for working behind schedule. Such a performance deserves a frown. To term it "uncivilised and barbaric" -- as Jyoti Basu, West Bengal's excitable chief minister, has done -- would be to challenge the limits of the English language.

With the term of Karnataka's governor having long ended and with Orissa's governor being on sick leave for a year and a half now, rhetoric is not going to solve anything. The real issue is the repeated misuse of the governor's office -- everything else is a red herring. The Sarkaria Commission stipulated that the appointment of a governor should be preceded by a consultation between the Centre and the chief minister concerned and that active politicians should not be considered for the job. If this principle were institutionalised many controversies, including the past week's, would simply not arise. In the past proposals have been made for a college comprising the vice-president, the prime minister, the home minister, the chief minister and, perhaps, the chief justice of India, which will appoint the governor for an inviolate five year term. It is interesting that the very parties that welcome such ideas while in opposition, forget them when in government. Has anything changed?

Still Losing Altitude

Indian Airlines needs more than just fresh capital. It needs a new owner.

Churlish as it may sound, the Government's decision to permit Indian Airlines (IA) to inject Rs 325 crore by way of equity and eventually reduce its own holding in the airline to 49 per cent may be a case of too little, too late. Till about a decade ago, IA flew in a happy monopoly market. Competition and the disastrous merger with Vayudoot, in effect, crippled it. Today, it is saddled with an ageing fleet and teeming offices. Productivity rates are unchanged since 1984. IA has over 400 employees to an aircraft; British Airways has 210. Some years ago, the Kelkar Committee recommended fresh capital flows of Rs 922 crore into IA. The logic of the Kelkar report pointed to the eventual privatisation of the airline. The Government's announcement of May 10 is a belated first step in this direction. The point is: is it enough?

The issue nobody wants to confront is that IA -- like its cousin, Air India (AI) -- is in the ICU. Of course, AI's state is even more perilous, with losses for 1998-99 amounting to Rs 340 crore. The civil aviation ministry, in the true traditions of Nero's Rome rajya, has simply watched while its crown jewels have lost more and more of their lustre. Brimming with ideas -- private airports, new airlines, upgraded traffic control mechanisms, the works -- its record of implementation has been appalling. Not surprisingly then, doubts persist about the planned rejuvenation of IA. That apart, the state of the capital markets and IA's balance sheet don't exactly make for a high premium share offering. Perhaps a better option would be to transfer managerial control of IA to a partner of established bona fides -- of course, after inviting transparent tenders. The ministry scuttled the Tata-Singapore Airlines project by raising the bogey of foreign investment. Ironically, it may be an overseas ally that will give IA a second wind.

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