A mind-boggling letter written by an employee of AI to CMD

This is an e-mail by a senior employee ( may be, not by designation, but surely by the length of service ) complaining as to how the airline has been systematically weakened by Mr.Praful Patel and his accomplices for their vested interests. The letter gives me creeps and makes me wonder what this man must have gone through to have written a letter like this.

He probably had vanished from the face of this Earth, like it happens to the whistle blowers in this country. And the culprits are having a party, as always.

Subject: My Grievance, pls consider

--- On Wed, 22/6/11, joseph ipe wrote: From: joseph ipe Subject: My Grievance, pls considerTo: CMD@airindia.inDate: Wednesday, 22 June, 2011, 4:07 PM

Dear Chairman & Managing Director,

This is to bring to your kind notice that as CMD of our National Carrier you have only succeeded in bring shame to this glorious company which was founded by Sir JRD Tata with a vision to become a world class airline. It occupied its place as one of the top five carriers in this world, till it was managed by the TATAs, but unfortunately with the control coming into the hands of a handful of politicians and bureaucrats with vested interests in filling up their own pockets, this company has virtually come to the roads with all the employees now forced to go with a begging bowl as a result on non payment of the basic right like payment of salary.

You as a bureaucrat do not know the hardship faced by the common employee of this company who have put their blood and sweat for the sake of the national carrier for the past so many years, You, being an IAS officer would receive your salary on time from the Central Government and you hardly have any empathy for the poor employees and their families who have been facing uncertainty and hardship from the very day you assumed charge as CMD of this Company in the form of veiled threats and non payment of our salaries on time.

Both the companies, i.e erstwhile AirIndia and Indian Airlines were doing well in their own domain, but this wonderful idea of a merger stating that the companies could not survive on their own due to competition and only a merger would help them to stay afloat. But instead of merger, this has been a daylight murder of both the companies wherein the combined losses were only 1200 crores prior to merger which have now ballooned up excess of 40000 crores of rupees.

You definitely deserve a NOBEL PRIZE for mismanagement of a PSU and how to close it down with active support of your political master and earnest wishes of private airlines in seeing this company down from riches to rags for which you will be suitably compensated by them.

I, as an employee of erstwhile Indian Airlines, has put in 34 years of service with this company and throughout my service, I have never experienced such uncertainty and deep anguish till date since this company has never let us down in our times of need and stood by us and we in turn have put in our best for the progress of the company.

But now we have come to such a stage where we feel ashamed to say that we are Air Indians as the Banks and Financial institutions from which we have taken loans for our home and childrens education have been knocking at our doorsteps daily for repayment of the EMIs and mocking us as PAUPER MAHARAJAs and even gone to the extent of refusing us any further loans the moment they know we are AIR INDIANS. All of us have become so frustrated and demoralized that every day to the office has become a nightmare for us, since we do not know what is in store for us once we reach our office.

We very well understand the sorry financial health of our company, but this situation has been brought about solely by gross mismanagement by the senior officials and bureaucrats who have been running the show for the past five to six years and treating this company of ours as their milking cow for their own gains and enjoyment. This has resulted in the company being brought down to such a stage where even payment of our basic emoluments as salaries have been withheld, whereas the management is busy sponsoring cricket and other sporting/social events and non curtailment of expenditure by senior officials who are on foreign postings at stations where we hardly have any flight operations. Please note that careless planning in procurement of aircrafts in excess of the actual requirement has led us into an un-surmountable debt trap of approx 12000crores as interest per year and now you put the blame on the employees which not at all acceptable by us.

Sir, I would humbly request your goodself not to ruin our national carrier any further and kindly help us to live a simple but stable life with payment of salaries on time so that we need not beg to outsiders to pay our daily dues like childrens school fees and day to day requirements. I, sincerely request you to kindly relieve me from the service of Air India provided all the dues due to me, (such as gratuity, PF and pension fund ) are handed out to me immediately as one time settlement, since I am in a pathetic financial situations and unable to face my family and friends. I hope that with my departure you would be able to save to some extent the amount spent on me if I were in service and this is the best I can do for my company which has been looking after me and my family for the past 34 years.

Please dont consider this as criticism or personal character assassination against you or any of our respected senior officials. I am writing this only out of deep personal anguish and frustration because I find my future very dark in such circumstances. Hence I humbly request your goodself to please consider this favorably and an early reply in this regard will be highly appreciated.

Mr.Joseph Ipe, 

ASST MANAGER, COMML, 

Emp Nbr: 547409,

 Air India ,

 Cochin .