PIM document for divestment of AI's subsidiary by next week: Official

The Central government is expected to issue the Preliminary Information Memorandum (PIM) for the divestment of national passenger carrier Air India's ground handling subsidiary by next week. According to a senior official from the Ministry of Civil Aviation, the PIM will be issued for the strategic disinvestment of Air India Air Transport Services Ltd (AIATSL).

The purpose of PIM is to provide certain information about the company to enable the interested parties to make assessment about the proposal prior to the submission of Express of Interest (EoI) bids. Last year in November, an inter-ministerial panel, Air India Specific Alternate Mechanism, decided to divest the government's stake in AIATSL.

The amount raised from the divestment of AIATSL will be used to retire some of the accumulated debt of Air India. AIATSL provides ground handling service at most of the airports in India. It was operationalised in February 2013 and in 2016-17 the subsidiary earned Rs 61.66 crore as profit before tax.

The inter-ministerial panel has decided to revive the national passenger carrier through sale of land and other assets and to offload its debt to an SPV which has already been incorporated. Prior to the current move, the government had offered to sell 76 per cent stake in Air India. However, the state-owned carrier, which has accumulated losses of over Rs 48,000 crore, failed to attract any bidder.