Air India

The recent downturn in the fortunes of Air India makes interesting reading. Amazing, how the indian bureaucrats can screw a high performing public sector corporation in a short time frame. Well the present outcome is borne out of consistent efforts of mass loot of the corporation by the bureaucrats in command and also politicians. Else how can one justify the large scale purchase of aircrafts during the days when the aviation industry worldwide was reeling under recession. Large scale freebies to the top management as well as the privilaged classes of employees must also have contributed to the downturn. Rampant corruption that eats up an organization from inside must also have contributed. Having once headed a large hospitality sector CPSU in the past and now a state PSU successfully, I have acquired a fair amount of insight into successful running of PSU's.
But CPSU's have a lot of innner strength and resilience despite the looters and it would be real fun to turn this organization around and make it one of the finest airlines internationally. If given a chance ofcourse, one year is all it would take for a turnaround even for a mammoth organization like the Air India. I am totally confident of doing the turnaround, but not being from the elite IAS is a big disadvantage in this country where these three letters take overriding priority over meritocracy. As one rightly said, dreams ought to remain dreams.