Though the government is eyeing around $ 1 billion which comes to around Rs 7000 crore by selling the national carrier Air India, the airline lost Rs 15 crore on an average each day which explains government¡¯s urgency of selling the airline.?
According to a report by?News18,?the latest numbers published in the Public Enterprise Survey 2017-18.? The airline registered a net loss of about Rs 5,338 crore while earlier the government had explained in the parliament that the provisional net loss figure was lower at Rs 3,500 crore. It means Rs 1,800 crore were added to the net loss.? These figures, however, are ¡°provisional¡± as these figures have not been put in parliament yet.
BCCL
The fiscal year 2017-18 saw the income of the airline grow to Rs 23,900.48 crore from Rs 22,197.10 crores from the previous fiscal, the net loss too has decreased a bit with Rs 6,281.54 crore in 2016-17.?
The government will initiate the process of strategic disinvestment of Air India in the second half of 2019-20 and in between it would work towards selling some of its subsidiaries and monetise assets.
Air India has a debt burden of Rs 55,000 crore. In November last year, a ministerial panel headed by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had approved transferring Rs 29,000 crore debt to a special purpose vehicle (SPV)-- Air India Asset Holding Company.
"We are eyeing $1 billion from the sale of Air India," the official told PTI.
After a botched attempt to sell Air India in May last year, the Jaitley-led panel in June decided to scrap the stake sale plan for the time being. It was decided to infuse more funds into the carrier and cut down debt by raising resources by selling land assets and other subsidiaries.
(With PTI inputs)