Vijay Kelkar pitches for full privatisation in aviation sectors

Finance commission chairman Vijay Kelkar today pitched for complete privatisation in certain sectors such as airline industry to ensure a level-playing field for all players to equip them face the global competition.

Kelkar, delivering a lecture here, said the government has to re-engineer its portfolio composition to facilitate more private participation and instead focus on sectors like rural roads and public-health infrastructure.

"There is a spectrum of assets, ranging from airlines to rural roads, where Government ownership is inadvisable for airlines but required for rural roads or public health infrastructure," Kelkar said today.

"Most of us would agree that the airline industry works quite well as a purely private affair. All over the world governments have got out of airlines," Kelkar said.

Arguing that the government's role as a regulator and player in sectors such as aviation might dent the confidence of private players as this may lead to conflict of interests, Kelkar said.

"There is a problem when the Government is conflicted...If the private sector feels that the regulator will not be an unbiased umpire in the competitive process then this make the private sector uncomfortable..it would be myopic for the Government to have a regulator who is conflicted," Kelkar said.