It was officially declared by the center on Friday that the Tata sons have won the bid for the national carrier Air India and has also acquired 100 percent of the shareholding. The secretary to the department of investment and public asset Management (D I P A M), Tuhin Kanta Pandey informed, that they already received two financial bids on September 15. And then the panel of ministers cleared the winning bid. He’s finally informed that the Tatas are the winning bid. After a gap of 68 years, this win in the bid is the return of Air India to its founders.
Pande said that “Tata presented a winning bid of Rs 18,000 crores,”. He further added that a letter of intent will also be sent to the bidder soon. And that the transaction will also be closed by the end of December 2021. The DIPAM Secretary further informed that the SPV of Tata sons that is a holding company of the conglomerate, has also submitted did off Rs 180 billion, which includes taking over Rs 15,300 crore of debt, and the rest of them will be paid in cash.
The secretary further informed that since 2009-10 the government has put in rupees 54584 crores as cash support for Air India. They have also put in rupees 55692 crores as guaranteed support for Air India. So in total, the government has put in a hefty amount of rupees 1,10,276, crores. He also said that the winning bidder that is the Tata sons will retain all the Air India employees for over one year, and in the second year if the employees are not retained then they will be of a VRS by winning bidders.
He said that on October 4th the winning bid was cleared by a group of ministers which included home minister Amit Shah, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal, and civil aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia.
Just after some movements of the announcement, Ratan Tata made a tweet in which he welcomed back Air India. He said in a note, “The Tata Group winning the bid for Air India is great news! While admittedly it will take considerable effort to rebuild Air India, it will hopefully provide a very strong market opportunity to the Tata Group’s presence in the aviation industry.”
N Chandrasekaran, Chairman of Tata Sons celebrated the win of the bid and said “This is a historic moment, and it will be a rare privilege for our Group to own and operate the country’s flag bearer airline. It’ll be our endeavor to build a world-class airline that makes every Indian proud.”
Ajay Singh the Chairman and managing director of SpiceJet congratulated Tata groups and said that it was an honor to be shortlisted for the bidding.
Earlier it was reported by Bloomberg, that Tata Sons was in charge of the national carrier and its humongous fleet by the end of the year. The news of Tata Group taking over the Maharaja had been named ‘Ghar Wapsi’ as the relationship between Tata Group-Air India dates back to 1932. It was when Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy (JRD), legendary industrialist and India’s first commercially licensed pilot, launched the national carrier. Tata Air Services which later became known as Tata Airlines is a part of India’s rich history in aviation. During World War II in Burma, it included support missions for the British Royal Air Force.
In 1946, the airline changed its name to the now-iconic Air India after the war ended. In 1948, Air India International was launched along with flights to Europe. In October 1947, 49 percent stake was bought by The Union government in Air India. In 1953, the government took over Air India from Tata Sons and nationalized it with the Air Corporations Act.
