NEW DELHI: After a hiatus of nearly two decades, the government’s programme to privatise state-owned firms restarted with the handing over of debt-laden national carrier Air India to the Tata Group.
With the new owner shelling out Rs 18,000 crore for the buyout of the ‘Maharaja’, this would be the highest-ever amount garnered through privatisation, and is even more than the cumulative sum mopped up through strategic sales from 1999-00 to 2003-04.
