The department of disinvestment (DoD) will be meeting bidders for the government stake in Air-India tomorrow to finalise the share purchase agreement for the sale process. After the agreements are finalised, the government will call for the financial bids.
The Cabinet committee on security will also be considering the security clearances for bidders before the end of next week. The Tata-SIA consortium and the Hindujas are the only two candidates left in the fray.
The Hindujas are yet to announce which aviation company they are tying up with to run the airline. However, the terms of the sale process allow them time till the submission of financial bids to finalise the consortium.
The government proposes to sell 40 per cent of its equity in Air-India besides handing over management control to the strategic buyer.
There would be a cap of 26 per cent on foreign investment. In addition, the government will divest 10 per cent equity in favour of the employees and another 10 per cent in favour of the financial institutions.
The sell-off process has been mired in controversy over issues like acquiring of new aircraft, signing of bilaterals, sales tax on aviation turbine fuel and the civil aviation policy.
While the government was originally considering going in for multi-stage bidding for the carrier, the idea was subsequently dropped as the number of bidders came down to two.
