Air India disinvestment back on the table
NEW DELHI: To dispel all ambiguity, the Union Ministry of Civil Aviation on Thursday said it will go ahead with the disinvestment of struggling national carrier Air India. The clarity came in the evening after the ministry’s written response to a starred question in the Lok Sabha in the morning stayed fuzzy.
“Continued support from the government had resulted in the improvement of financial and operational performance of Air India. As per the recommendations of AISAM (Air India Specific Alternative Mechanism), the government will now go ahead with the process of disinvestment of the company,” the ministry said in a statement.
Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri took to Twitter to say that in a meeting on June 28, 2017, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) had in principle approved the consideration for strategic disinvestment of Air India and its five subsidiaries. To facilitate the process, the CCEA constituted the AISAM.
In an AISAM Meeting held in June 2018, which is last year, it was decided that due to issues like volatile crude oil prices & adverse fluctuations in exchange rates, the atmosphere was not conducive for the disinvestment.
But this was last year.
In an AISAM meeting on March 28 last year, it was decided that due to issues like volatile crude oil prices and adverse fluctuations in exchange rates, the atmosphere was not conducive for the disinvestment. The situation has since changed and the government is committed to see the disinvestment process through, the ministry said.
To begin with, the AISAM has to be reconstituted as its erstwhile members Arun Jaitley and Suresh Prabhu don’t figure in the Modi 2.0 ministry. They will be replaced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Hardeep Puri. Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari is likely to stay on the panel.