Privatisation can bring Air India back to its past glory:Sinha

Mumbai, Dec 29 (PTI) Defending government decision toprivatise national carrier Air India and its subsidiaries,junior aviation minister Jayant Sinha today said the privatesector can run airlines business "far better" than government.Sinha also expressed hope of getting a winning bid forthe national carrier in the next six to eight months.To revive the loss-making national carrier, governmentis working on the modalities for its strategic disinvestment."Around the world most public sector airlines likeLufthansa, British Airways and Qantas have all beendisinvested by their governments.""They are now actually private sector airlines becausethe private sector can run airlines far better than governmentrunning them. That is why we are also going through thestrategic disinvestment process with AI," Sinha told an IIT-Bombay event.Expressing hope that "good" bidders will come forward,he said once the airline is privatised he is sure of Air Indiareturning to its earlier glory."We are hopeful that in the next six-eight months wewill be able to find a winning bidder for Air India," he said.Stating that Air India has improved its performancequite dramatically in the past three years and it is nowmaking operating profit, Sinha said the arilines' total debtas of September stood at Rs 51,890 crore and the annualinterest outgo on this debt is around Rs 5,000 crore.This high financing cost, which is on the net profitbasis, puts Air India balance sheet in the red, he said."The winning bidder can invest more, improve its services,make the airline more competitive," Sinha said.On June 28, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairsgave an in-principle approval to privatise Air India alongwith its five subsidiaries. Subsequently, an AI-specificalternative mechanism was set up to guide the process.The ministerial group is studying how to treat Air India's large unsustainable debt. some of the ideas doing the rounds are hiving off certain assets of the airline group to a shell company, and then go in for strategic disinvestment of three profit-making subsidiaries.

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