PM assures House Air India salaries will be paid

New Delhi: Prime minister Manmohan Singh assured the Lok Sabha on Wednesday that wages for Air India employees would be cleared at the earliest. His assurance came after members of the House raised concerns at the difficulties faced by staff of the badly-struggling state-owned carrier.

Confessing that Air India was in "serious difficulty", Singh said the government had formed a Group of Ministers to look into the financial restructuring of the airline and try and bring it back to normal.

"Air India doesn't have resources to pay salaries.... Whatever be the final outcome of the GoM, I can assure the House that the government will find ways and means and ensure that wages and salaries are paid," he said in the course of an intervention during Question Hour.

Earlier, members of the House raised concerns about employees finding it difficult to pay monthly instalments for their car or home loans as salaries had not been paid for the last three months.

Singh assured the House that salaries for June and July as well productivity-linked incentive payments would be paid at the earliest.

Junior minister V Narayanasamy, who replied to questions on behalf of ailing civil aviation minister Vayalar Ravi, said the "turnaround plan and financial restructuring plan" of Air India are presently being looked into by a committee of secretaries appointed by the GoM.