Our oldie, goldie Air India, given birth by J.R.D. Tata in 1932 with an aim to have India's own flying baby, is upset with this cruel world where a company, which was till two decades ago the sole bread winner in the airspace of the country, is no longer asked for by its fellow countrymen, let alone the swarms of foreigners coming to India to smirk at the slum dogs here. Tata's baby, which has grown up since, and exponentially, especially around the belly area, is seeming to be too heavy for its step daddy, our government, which can't stop it crying. Adopted in 1953 and scientifically experimented upon in 2007 when it was merged with its half brother, Indian Airlines, the experiment has gone haywire (as usual) and given life to such a monster (NACIL- National Aviation Company of India Limited) that the step daddy is desperately trying to find its mother so that it can save itself from the responsibility.
Its current godfather, Mr Praful Patel is feeding the fat NACIL at regular intervals, be it Rs 800 Crores past year, Rs 1200 crores in the coming weeks or Rs 3000 Crores promised in the coming 2 years. The fatboy is all too happy to have such a sincere godfather. But what can the godfather do, when the fatboy is threatening to go on a suicide mission if it is not nourished adequately. Why should it bother when the employer of the stepdaddy is giving him handsome salary (the taxpayer) because the employer can't fire the stepdaddy (these trade unions have five year contracts but all of them have the same shitty employees). Its another matter that the stepdaddy doesn't have money for distributing the grains to the poor family members of the employer.
Hunger list of the fatboy is long- Rs 40000 crore worth of loans outstanding, including Rs 12000crores in working capital loans, expenditure of Rs63 crore for every Rs 50 crore earned. Net Loss of Rs 5500 crore in 2009-10. And when the daddy tells it to loose some weight, it just is too lazy and unwilling to shred those precious fat cells giving warmth under the belly.
The godfather is thinking of a magic wand to make the fatboy leaner and meaner, having an IPO in the market, considering the heart whelming response in the recent PSU issues. Seeing the morale of Mr Praful Patel, we are also thinking of having an IPO of Kaleidoscope, encouraged by our potential investors' warm smiles in the farewell video. Atleast we will have a greater subscription than the NACIL.
But hey, next time, if you are planning to fly, try Air India. You will face some problems ( may be a lot of them) but there is light at the end of the dark tunnel ( or so we are made to believe). May be the baby will stop crying or atleast will stop 'leaking' on our shirts!
By- Rahul Bansal
1 comment:
Brilliantly written, highly informative with doses of humour in it...nice work..
Post a Comment