Govt treads cautiously as it prepares blueprint for Air India divestment

The government is proceeding with utmost caution before putting Air India on the block, after potential buyers baulked at its first attempt to divest a majority stake in the national carrier last year.

“We will release the draft share purchase agreement (SPA) along with Expression of Interest (EoI). Last time, it was released after the EoI stage. A lot of potential investors raised questions at the pre-bid stage after the EoI was released. We had told them that those issues will be cleared in the draft SPA. So, nobody submitted EoI. Investors should have more transparent information at the very beginning. Through the draft SPA, they could know the details of liabilities including employee costs, their benefits and the dos and don’ts,” a senior finance ministry official said under condition of anonymity.