Rajiv Bansal, Additional Secretary in the Petroleum Ministry, has been given the interim charge of CMD of Air India
About two years after he was appointed as Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) of debt-ridden Air India to turn it around, Indian Railway Service officer Ashwani Lohani was on Wednesday named Chairman of the Railway Board, following the resignation of incumbent AK Mittal.
Mittal, who was appointed for a two-year term, resigned in the wake of last week's train derailment in Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh, in which at least 23 persons were killed.
Rajiv Bansal, Additional Secretary in the Petroleum Ministry, has been given the interim charge of CMD of Air India.
Interestingly, a day after the accident, Lohani, a 1980-batch officer from Madhya Pradesh cadet, had reacted on social media.
He posted: "The tragic railway disaster is a glaring symptom of the crying need for structural and process reforms cutting across hierarchies down up to the ground level that this great organization needs, along with a genuine focus on HR. Indeed a very sad day."
Lohani, touted as a turn-around man, is credited with the turnaround of the India Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC) in the year 2002-03 as its CMD and Madhya Pradesh State Tourism Development Corporation (MPSTDC) as its MD in 2004-05 and 2006-09. He also worked as Chief Mechanical Engineer with Northern Railways and Director of National Rail Museum.
A steam engine lover, Lohani is spearheading its revival movement in the country and even set aGuinness World Record in 1998 for running the oldest working steam locomotive in the world. He is also a Limca National Record holder, which he received in 2007 for the four engineering degrees to his credit.
As the CMD of Air India, Lohani hoped to steer the airline towards revival by bringing structural and strategic changes in its eco-system. As part of this plan, he asked banks to convert their debt into equity. However, none of the banks agreed to it, following which the Cabinet recently decided to privatise the airline. Air India clocked its first operational profit after the merger with Indian Airlines, during Lohani's tenure, but it could not do much about the debt which is in excess of Rs 55,000 crore.
One of the highlight of his tenure at Air India was when he came out openly in support of his employee who was assaulted with footwear by a Shiv Sena MP during a flight to Delhi. The public anger against the politician was so high that the Civil Aviation Ministry proposed a policy to bring out a no-flying list of 'unruly' passengers who could be barred from flying in any Indian airline.
Lohani's decision to get Air India to discontinue non-vegetarian meals on domestic sector for economy class passengers, on the plea that it will save around Rs 14-20 crore annually for the airline, led to a controversy.
The decision surprised the aviation industry insiders as airlines around the world, specially full service carrier like Air India, offer wide choice of cuisines in order to attract passengers to their airline.
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