The SCOPE secretary-general made the above remarks in an exclusive interview to The Financial Express here on Saturday. The reaction was sought regarding the sacking of the Air India and Indian Airlines boards by the government. The government had sacked the AI and IA boards as a result of the boards' decision earlier in the week to merge as per recommendations of the Kelkar Committee report.

Actions like removing professionals from the corporate bodies and inducting bureaucrats in their place are not going to help any company, Hakeem said. In the case of Indian Airlines, the corporate `waslooking up very much' and had even made profits last year, he said. In any case, problems with the airlines was due to the lack of traffic resulting from the general global recession, the secretary-general said. Implementation of the Kelkar committee report -- which had suggested merger of the two airlines -- would help in better managing the airlines, he said. The world over, mergers and acquisitions have become a trend and the Air India and Indian Airlines merger was in tune with this global trend, Hakeem said.

Meanwhile, the three-day SCOPE national conference on synergising human relations development interventions for growth which concluded here on Saturday, failed to throw up any official line on the Air India and Indian Airlines merger controversy as the SCOPE chairman Uddesh Kohli was not present while the conference delegates were `debating' the merger issue, it is learnt from reliable sources.

In his concluding speech, SCOPE Programme and Training Committee chairman and Oil & Natural GasCommission personnel director Jauhari Lal said `with increasing complexities, future success now depends on performing organisations' which required alignment of mission, values, vision, strategies and work culture.Human resource development has to reorient itself to assume the new role and responsibility distinct from the traditional role, Jauhari Lal said.