Ajit Singh wants ‘younger’ look in Centaur hotels

Civil aviation minister Ajit Singh has taken up his next challenge: to give a ‘young’ look to the ailing Hotel Corporation of India (HCI) that runs the Centaur chain of hotels. He also intends to replace permanent employees with contract jobs. Saubhadra Chatterji reports.

Civil aviation minister Ajit Singh has taken up his next challenge: to give a ‘young’ look to the ailing Hotel Corporation of India (HCI) that runs the Centaur chain of hotels. He also intends to replace permanent employees with contract jobs.

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Ironically, while he is facing political heat for taking steps that may allegedly ruin Air India’s business, Singh wants to finance the early retirement scheme through AI’s funds.

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

The note states that the average age of HCI employees is 54 years — “too high for a hospitality company”. It also mentions that the vacancies can be filled up by “short-term contracts”.

HCI operates two Centaur hotels, one each at Delhi and Srinagar, and two Chefair flight kitchens. Singh expects that the new proposal will go through smoothly as the retirement age of AI employees is also 58 years.