Air India to privatise Centaur Hotels?

The management of the loss-making Centaur Hotels situated in Delhi and Srinagar and run by the Hotel Corporation of India (HCI) – a public company in turn wholly owned by Air India, could soon be privatised if the aviation ministry has its way. Tushar Srivastava reports.

The management of the loss-making Centaur Hotels situated in Delhi and Srinagar and run by the Hotel Corporation of India (HCI) – a public company in turn wholly owned by Air India, could soon be privatised if the aviation ministry has its way.

Aviation minister Ajit Singh confirmed that his ministry was considering privatising the management of the two hotels.

Officials also said that the Jammu and Kashmir government’s consent will have to be taken as the Srinagar property is currently under their lease.

“We are also going through the operations, management and development agreement signed with Delhi International Airport Limited to see if there is no future conflict with land use near the Delhi airport,” an official said.

HCI, which also operates two flight kitchens, one each at Mumbai and Delhi under the brand name Chefair, has been making losses for the past 10 years.

The aviation ministry has also sent a draft cabinet note for inter-ministerial consultations to reduce the age of retirement in HCI from 60 to 58. The new proposal is aimed to be applied retrospectively from July 1, 2013.

Gurudas Dasgupta, chief of the employee union AITUC opposed the proposals: “Why is the government not making new investments to improve the hotels? And this theory of younger workforce is baseless, in any industry you also need experience.”