New Delhi, Apr 7: Four months after Air India Board decided to regularise 66 temporary workers of Centaur Hotel in Srinagar, requisite orders were finally issued and handed over to all these staffers yesterday.
 These temporary employees were working for over 15 years at the Centaur Lake View Hotel, owned by Air India subsidiary Hotel Corporation of India (HCI).
 Orders were issued regularising the appointment of 66 temporary employees by Air India's Senior Vice President Deepa Mahajan yesterday. Following this, the staffers submitted their joining reports also, the employees' representative, Javed Pandit, told PTI from Srinagar.
 The airline Board, at its meeting on November 29 last year, had agreed to regularise the services of these temporary hands. The decision was taken "keeping in view the sensitivity of the Srinagar Station and as a one-time exercise not to be quoted as precedent", official sources had then said.
 At this meeting, the Air India Board was briefed by Mahajan about the "improvement" of business of the hotel, even when militancy was at its peak in the Valley.
 "The temporary employees have continued to perform their work even when militancy in Srinagar was at its peak and at the risk of their lives have kept the business going and served the organisation to the best of their capability," Mahajan was understood to have informed the Board.
 The Board took up the issue after senior CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury, who heads the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture, and senior Congress MP Saifuddin Soz raised it with successive Civil Aviation Ministers, Praful Patel and Vayalar Ravi, and the incumbent Ajit Singh.
 As a cost-saving measure by the ailing national carrier, this prime property and its employees were offered to Jammu and Kashmir government for a take-over.
 The state government decided to look into the different aspects of taking over the hotel and has now set up a high- level panel to negotiate with the HCI on the issue.

Lastupdate on : Sat, 7 Apr 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sat, 7 Apr 2012 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Sun, 8 Apr 2012 00:00:00 IST