Indicating an end to their three-day long protests, the Joint Forum of employees of Airports Authority of India on Friday said it would 'seriously' consider Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's appeal to call off the protest against the 'privatisation' of Delhi and Mumbai airports.
"The prime minister has made an appeal to us to end the stir. We will seriously consider it. We will be meeting soon to take a decision," Joint Forum Convenor M K Ghoshal told reporters after a 90-minute meeting with the prime minister, which was also attended by Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel and civil aviation secretary Ajay Prasad.
Ghoshal said the government was urged to set up a tripartite committee, comprising officials of the ministry, AAI and Forum representatives to study the alternate plan for modernisation of the two airports, the future of AAI and other related issues.
Earlier briefing reporters, Patel said the government had no plans to privatise AAI and even the prime minister had assured the forum that no AAI employee would lose his/her job.
However, the decision of awarding the Delhi and Mumbai airport contracts to GMR and GVK-led consortia was final, the civil aviation minister said.