Mumbai, Feb 3 (PTI) Citing ambiguity in service rules, around 5,000 Air India employees have yet to accept their transfer orders to the newly-created subsidiary Air India Engineering Services (AIESL), which became functional from last Friday, sources said.

"The management had issued transfer orders to around 5,000 employees belonging to engineering services. However, they have yet to accept these orders, citing lack of clarity on service rules," Air India sources told PTI here.

The situation has become more challenging for the airline management as even the 1,000 non-technical staff, who were told to join AIES on deputation from February 1, have also not accepted the orders citing similar reasons, they said.

"There can''t be two rules for one entity. This is ridiculous that while a majority of the engineering services employees have been transferred, almost 20 per cent of them have been sent on deputation," they added.

The government should reconsider its decision and come out with a uniform policy for the entity, they said, adding, "we are not against all employees being sent on deputation on the lines of Air India Express".

National carrier Air India, as part of its financial and restructuring plan, has hived off its engineering and ground handling services into two wholly-owned subsidiaries-Air India Engineering Services and Air India Transport Services (AITSL) from February 1.

The hive-off also involves transferring 13,000 of the 25,000 Air India employees.

Airlines Engineering unit consists of core and non-core groups. The core group which has been transferred to the subsidiary includes aircraft maintenance engineers, technical officers, service engineers and technicians.

There are around 1,500 aircraft maintenance engineers including the executive-level ones as well as around 3,000 service engineers with Air India. (More) PTI IAS BEN NSK