Reappointing tainted officials on contract has become a norm at national carrier Air India (AI) which is reeling under losses thanks to the contribution of some of them. The airline has taken back another tainted officer, executive director P Eswarchandran, though there is a central vigilance commission (CVC) report on him on how he wasted crores on its hotel property in Delhi.

The Indian Commercial Pilots Association (ICPA) has demanded that an investigation should be done in the appointment of officiating executives that are junior and have tainted records. But the national carrier is on a spree of hiring tainted officials in spite of the scams that they have alleged to have committed.

In August last year, the chief technical examiner of CVC conducted an audit of all civil contracts in public sector undertakings (PSUs).

The team visited Hotel Centaur, Delhi, which belongs to Hotel Corporation of India Limited (HCIL), a hotel division of Air India. The hotel was undergoing an upgrade of 100 out of the 400 rooms and the contract was being supervised by Eswarchandran who was the executive vice-president of civil works & properties for AI in 2007.

The committee was not happy with the work and found that money running into crores of rupees had been wasted. It found Eswarchandran and 12 others guilty of granting renovation work to ineligible firms, paying contractors more than market rates, and poor supervision resulting in use of sub-standard material.

Though the contract was originally awarded for Rs15 crore, due to sub-standard work the company reportedly overpaid over Rs 8 crores,” informed an AI source.

The CVC then asked the airline to take action against the 13 officials including Eswarchandran, for whom it suggested “proposed censure and stoppage of air pass for five years”.

However, no action was taken against Eswarchandran in spite of numerous reminders from the CVC. He was allowed to retire in July 2010 only to be hired back in August 2010.

In another case, according to the CVC report of March 25, V Srikrishnan, executive director, materials management, was charge sheeted for irregularities in the procurement of 500 portable entertainment assistant (PEA) players in 2005-2006. These PEA’s are given to passengers in the first and executive class. It accuses Srikrishnan and Amod Sharma, the then director of in-flight services, of violating procedures in the procurement and buying them for more than the market rate.

The CVC asked the airline to penalise Srikrishnan and examine the role of AK Sharma, assistant general manager, in-flight services. However, Srikrishnan was allowed to retire on March 29, and hired back as officer on special duty on April 1 on a monthly salary of Rs1.5 lakh.