Amit Shah to head ministerial panel on Air India divestment

New Delhi, July 18

Home Minister Amit Shah will head a reconstituted Group of Ministers (GoM) on Air India disinvestment and Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari has been dropped from the panel, sources said.

The panel, which is to work out modalities for sale of Air India, will now have four ministers — Shah, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Commerce and Railway Minister Piyush Goyal and Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri.

When the panel, named Air India Specific Alternative Mechanism (AISAM), was first constituted in June 2017, it had five members and was headed by the then Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

The other four were the then Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju, Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu, Power and Coal Minister Piyush Goyal and Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari.

According to the sources, the GoM was reconstituted after the Modi-2.0 government came to power and Gadkari is no longer part of the panel.

“The AISAM has been reconstituted. It is now a four- member panel, against five members earlier,” a source said.

In its first term, the Modi government invited bids from investors in 2018 to buy out the government’s 76 per cent stake in Air India, along with management control. However, the process failed as investors did not put in their bids.

Following that, transaction advisor EY prepared a report citing probable reasons that led to failure of the sale process. The reasons cited include the government retaining 24 per cent stake and corresponding rights, high debt, volatile crude oil prices, fluctuations in exchange rate, changes in macro environment and restriction on bidding by individuals. — PTI