India's top bureaucrats are meeting today to discuss Air India stake sale plan

The core group of secretaries on disinvestment— all finance ministry secretaries, corporate affairs secretary and law secretary— is likely to meet today (October 28) and discuss the proposed stake sale in Air India by the Indian government. It will be the group's second meeting this month.

The Narendra Modi government is striving to sell Air India to a private player after failing to find a bidder in its previous term. Recently, the cabinet approved new process for strategic disinvestment making possible stakeholder consultation before inviting bids. So far, the strategic disinvestment process didn't allow for stakeholder consultation before the government issued EOI.

Today's meeting could move towards the next step of Expression of Interest (EoI) draft of Air India, sources told IANS.

Air India's total debt stands at around ₹58,000 crore and cumulative loss, ₹70,000 crore. In the financial year ending March 31, 2019, the airline is estimated to have reported a loss of ₹7,600 crore.

At the earlier meeting, the group of top bureaucrats cleared strategic sale in Bharat Petroleum Corporation of India (BPCL), Shipping Corporation of India (SCI), BEML and Container Corporation of India, and also discussed the EoIs for Air India. Stake sales in two power PSUs —THDC India and Neepco — were also approved. These two PSUs could be taken over by state-run NTPC.

With inputs from IANS

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