Vikram Dev Dutt is named Chairman and Managing Director of Air India Limited by the government
He will be promoted to the position of Additional Secretary and will be paid accordingly.
Vikram Dev Dutt was named Chairman and Managing Director of Air India Limited by the Ministry of Civil Aviation on January 18. He will be promoted to the position of Additional Secretary and will be paid accordingly.
Prior to this, Dutt was appointed as the Delhi government’s Principal Secretary for Health and Family Welfare in June 2020. In March 2021, however, Lieutenant Governor of Delhi Anil Baijal transferred the AGMUT 1993 batch IAS official and appointed him as principal secretary of the Services department.
In 2020, Dutt became the principal secretary of Delhi’s Health and Family Welfare Department, where he pushed for the government’s initiatives to control COVID-19 cases in the national capital.
Meanwhile, speculations have surfaced that Tata Group’s takeover of India’s loss-making national carrier, Air India, may be postponed by a month till January. The reason for this is that procedures are taking longer than intended to complete.
In October 2020, the Union government accepted the highest proposal for 100% equity shares in Air India and Air India Express, as well as a 50% stake in ground-handling company AISATS, from a Tata Sons subsidiary – the first privatisation in 20 years.
The government signed a share purchase deal with Tata Sons to sell national carrier Air India for Rs 18,000 crore on October 25.
Tata will pay Rs 2,700 crore in cash and take over Rs 15,300 crore of the airline’s debt under the terms of the agreement. Once the handover process is finished, the cash component will be released.
Before turning over the loss-making airline to Tata Group, 75 percent of the debt, or Rs 46,262 crore, will be transferred to a special purpose organisation called AIAHL. Tatas will not be allowed to keep non-core assets such as Air India’s Vasant Vihar Housing colony, the Air India Building at Nariman Point in Mumbai, and the Air India Building in New Delhi, among other things.
Tatas would receive 141 Air India planes, 42 of which will be leased and the remaining 99 will be owned.
