INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Tatas will also be handed over Air India Express and a 50% stake in ground handling arm.New Delhi: The Indian government is likely to hand
over Air India to the Tata Group on Thursday, nearly 69 years after it was taken from the conglomerate, officials said on Wednesday.After a
competitive bidding process, the government had on October 8 last year sold Air India to Talace Private Limited - a subsidiary of the Tata
Group's holding company - for Rs 18,000 crore.Meanwhile, two airline pilot unions - Indian Pilots' Guild (IPG) and Indian Commercial
Pilots' Association (ICPA) - on Monday warned Air India's CMD Vikram Dev Dutt of legal action as "multiple deductions and recoveries have
been projected" on the dues owed to pilots."This recovery exercise is entirely illegal, and we demand that this anomaly is rectified and the
carrier's January 20 order to check grooming and measure the body mass index (BMI) of cabin crew members at the airports just before their
flights.These unions - Air India Employees' Union (AIEU) and All India Cabin Crew Association (AICCA) - on Monday wrote to Dutt opposing the
order on the grounds that it is dehumanising and in violation of rules prescribed by aviation regulator DGCA."BMI is a person's weight in
kilograms divided by the square of height in metres
A high BMI can indicate high body fatness," stated the website of US' Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Three days after Air
India's sale was announced on October 8 last year, a Letter of Intent (LoI) was issued to the Tata Group confirming the government's
willingness to sell its 100 per cent stake in the airline
On October 25, the Centre signed the share purchase agreement (SPA) for this deal.Officials said on Wednesday that the airline will most
likely be handed over to the conglomerate on Thursday as all the formalities are close to completion.As a part of the deal, the Tata group
will also be handed over Air India Express and a 50 per cent stake in ground handling arm Air India SATS.Tatas had on October 8 beat the Rs
15,100-crore offer by a consortium led by SpiceJet promoter Ajay Singh and the reserve price of Rs 12,906 crore set by the government for
the sale of its 100 per cent stake in the loss-making carrier.While this will be the Centre's first privatisation since 2003-04, Air India
will be the third airline brand in the Tatas' stable as it holds a majority interest in AirAsia India and Vistara, a joint venture with
Singapore Airlines Ltd.(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by TheIndianSubcontinent staff and is published from a
