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September 6, 2000
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Money > Business Headlines > Report September 6, 2000 |
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Hectic lobbying on for Air-India controlMinister of State for Divestment Arun Shourie on Wednesday gave a strong indication that the government would stick to the cabinet decision of allowing 26 per cent foreign holding in Air-India, even as hectic lobbying is on to limit foreign stake to 25 per cent and retain management control of Air-India with Indian nationals. Announcing that the 'expression of interest' to be published either this week or the next would clear the air completely, Shourie said the ''cabinet has already taken a decision on 26 per cent''. He was responding to queries from reporters on the sidelines of a FICCI seminar on divestment. Shourie said he would be ''candid'' to admit that Reliance Industries vice-chairman Anil Ambani had met him and argued that the government should not insist on any previous experience in the airlines business while inviting 'expression of interest'. Ambani had argued with the minister that the Ambanis had no experience in the refinery business and yet were able to put up one of the largest refineries in the world in a record of time of 30 months involving an investment of Rs 350 billion. Earlier in his presentation, the minister made no bones about the fact that hectic lobbying was going on. He even took a dig at the Federation of the Chambers of Commerce and Industry in India saying that the chamber's aviation wing was headed by the Jet Airways' chairman Naresh Goel. The chamber president had recently written a letter to Civil Aviation Minister Sharad Yadav stating that the foreign holding be restricted to 25 per cent. Subsequent letters written to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee by a few Congress members of Parliament were a copy of the FICCI letter seeking a divestment policy retaining the management control with the Indian nationals. Shourie said that even some of the operative parts of the report of the parliamentary standing committee on transport and tourism on Air-India divestment were the same as the FICCI letter. |
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