After the flop attempt to sell Air India, the Modi government is now reportedly mulling over selling the entire 100 per cent stake in the national carrier. Earlier on May 31, when the government failed to find any bidders, Economic affairs secretary Subhash Chandra Garg told reporters that the government would make changes to its Air India plan.
And now, acording to a Bloomberg report, Centre is re-examining its disinvestment process for Air India. Quoting Subhash Chandra Garg, a senior official in the Ministry of Finance, the report stated that the government is considering various options and doesn’t intend to insist on keeping 24 per cent of the company.
“A certain kind of strategy was offered that didn’t find many takers and therefore something different will have to be done,” Garg told the publication.
“There’s no fixed objective that government should have 24%. It can be re-examined,” he further added.
The deadline for submission of Expression of Interest (EoI) ended on May 31 and did not elicit any response from potential bidders.
The ailing airline’s total debt stood at over Rs 48,000 crore at the end of March 2017.
In April, both IndiGo and Jet Airways had said that they would not be participating in the Air India disinvestment process. IndiGo was the first to evince interest in Air India disinvestment when the government had mooted the plan last year.
Meanwhile, former Finance Minister P Chidambaram claimed that the lack of clarity in the policy objective indicates that the government is “confused” regarding what to do with Air India.
“It is neither privatisation nor a joint venture arrangement. There is no clarity in the government’s policy objective. In this case, you cannot succeed in selling 70 percent or any stake in Air India. Obviously, the government is very confused as to how to go about it,” he said at a press conference here.
Chidambaram further alleged that the Banks Board Bureau (BBB), which has been constituted to improve the health of the banking sector, is an “utter failure.”
“I would like to give the BBB a DDD rating (negative rating). Gross NPAs have risen in the last four years from Rs 2, 63,000 crores to Rs 10, 30,000 crores and will rise more. No bank is willing to lend a big-ticket loan. Credit growth to the industry in the last four years was 5.6, 2.7, -1.9 and 0.7 percent. They (BBB) have failed in improving the health of the banking system. I had no expectations of them succeeding. I think the BBB should be quietly buried,” he said.
Prasanta Patnaik 
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