Thursday, January 12 2006 13:18 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: The United Progressive Alliance (UPA)-Left Coordination Committee today (Jan 12, 2006) skirted the vexed issue of EPF rate for the current fiscal, but the Left parties opposed the privatisation of Delhi and Mumbai airports even while agreeing that their modernisation was needed urgently.

At the two-hour meeting, attended by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi, held over a month before the Union Budget for 2006-07, a note on resource mobilisation submitted by Left parties was discussed and it was decided that Finance Minister P Chidambaram will hold a separate meeting with the Left parties to discuss the suggestions in greater detail.

"Privatisation cannot be allowed in the garb of modernisation, which is needed to decongest the two busy airports," Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) leader Sitaram Yechury told reporters after the meeting.

Chidambaram said the Left parties' note on airport modernisation would be sent to the e-GoM which would take that into account.

"There is an urgency to complete the modernisation of these two airports. Having regard to the urgency, it was decided that the Government may take a suitable decision," he said talking to reporters along with the CPI(M) leader.