Debt leeway for Air India bidders

In a bid to revive Air India’s privatisation, the government is planning to give flexibility to potential investors to decide on the humongous debt of the national carrier, a top official has said.

The flexibility to decide on the quantum of debt they want to absorb will replace the current condition of the buyer taking over more than a third of the debt and transferring the rest to a special purpose vehicle, Tuhin Kanta Pandey, secretary, department of investment and public asset management (DIPAM) , said.

The potential investors have said that because of the uncertainty created by Covid-19 in the aviation sector, the debt should not be fixed at the expression of interest (EoI) stage, he said.