Air India, Bharat Petroleum to be sold by March 2020, says Nirmala Sitharaman

The sale of the two companies will help the government raise over Rs 1 lakh crore

Air India, Bharat Petroleum to be sold by March 2020, says Nirmala Sitharaman Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman | PTI

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday said that the central government is looking to wrap up the sale of state-run companies Air India and Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL) by March next year.

In an interview with a leading daily, Sitharaman said that the government is expecting the deal to be completed this year and that ground realities will play out. The sale of the two debt-ridden companies will help the government raise over Rs 1 lakh crore in the current fiscal year.

Earlier, the plan to sell Air India did not go through for lack of investors and the lukewarm response to its sale. However, Sitharaman has said that currently there is a lot of interest among investors. The ailing national carrier has been facing financial distress, with a debt of around Rs 58,000 crore.

Air India posted an operating loss of around Rs. 4,600 crore in the last financial year mainly due to higher oil prices and forex losses but the debt-laden carrier expects to turn operationally profitable in 2019-20, according to senior officials.

The government's stake in Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) is around 53 per cent. A group of secretaries had agreed for the sale of the government's entire stake in the company in October. The government is hoping to mop up around Rs 65,000 crore including any entry premium.

The finance minister also said that the government had taken measures to reverse the economic slowdown, claiming that several sectors were recovering. She said aid industry captains had helped improve their balance sheet and many of them were planning fresh investments.

(with inputs from agencies)