Airports Authority of India to hire 1,000 fire fighters

Airports Authority of India (AAI) plans to recruit more than 1,000 fire fighters, including women, in the coming months, a senior official said.

State-owned AAI, which manages more than 120 airports in different parts of the country, had announced recruitment of its first woman fire fighter -- Taniya Sanyal -- last week.

AAI Chairman Guruprasad Mohapatra said Sanyal is the first woman to complete training and join the fire brigade service at the organisation.

"We thought that we should also create an enabling provision for women to join the fire services at AAI. It requires lot of fitness and physical standards," he said.

Speaking to PTI, Mohapatra said AAI is going to recruit more than 1,000 fire fighters and there would be "quite a good number" of women.

Currently, AAI has over 3,700 fire fighters, he added.

In its annual report for 2016-17, it had mentioned that specification for the "recruitment of women candidates to the post of Junior Assistant (Fire Services) in AAI has been introduced for the first time".

According to Mohapatra, hiring of women fire fighters is consistent with the government's philosophy of encouraging both men and women to take up challenging assignments without discrimination as well as ensuring equal employment opportunities.

At the end of 2016-17, the organisation had more than 17,300 employees, as per the annual report.

(PTI)