Last year, the government had invited bids from private companies, including foreign ones, to buy out its stake along with management control in helicopter service operator Pawan Hans Ltd (PHL).
The chopper company is a 51:49 joint venture between the Civil Aviation Ministry and oil behemoth ONGC.
Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju today said that during the bidding process, there was effectively only one bid.
To a question on whether there would be a fresh bidding procedure he said, "Single bid scenario might not be the correct thing. So we are thinking on how to go about it. All options are open."
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Another senior official of the ministry of civil aviation said that fresh bids is the only option left because as per rules an entity can't be disinvested with just one bid.
He added that the government plans to call new bids in "two to three months" as the basic structure of tender is in place and the government only needs to liberalise certain conditionalities to attract more players.
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