NEW DELHI: Amid speculation that the government is mulling over selling its complete stake in Air India, Union Minister Jayant Sinha clarified that the government remains committed to the disinvestment of the national carrier but has no plan to exit it altogether.
Union Minister of State, Civil Aviation said,“The government has no such plan to exit Air India by offering 100 per cent stake.“The government remains committed to the disinvestment of Air India.”
Due to volatile crude prices and adverse fluctuations in exchange rates, the present environment is not conducive to stimulate interest amongst investors for strategic disinvestment of Air India in immediate near future, Sinha said.
According to Sinha, Air India has been making losses since the merger with Indian Airlines in 2007.
"High-interest burden, increase in competition, high airport user charges, adverse impact of exchange rate variation and liberalised bilaterals to foreign carriers leading to excess capacity in the market are among the major reasons for the losses," he said.
He said that this issue would be revisited once global economic indicators including oil prices and forex conditions stabilise.
The government is also working on ways to improve the performance of Air India.
The proposed stake sale in the debt-laden airline failed to take off as it did not receive any Expression of Interest (EoI) from potential bidders when the deadline ended on May 30.
(With PTI inputs)