New Delhi: Faced with a Rs 40,000 crore debt burden, Air India has urged the government to soon clear some of its dues on account of VVIP and evacuation flights to enable it disburse salaries to its staff this month.
While the government has already paid Rs 250 crore to the ailing national carrier for carrying out VVIP duties and flights to evacuate Indians from Libya and Yemen, officials said another Rs 173 crore was expected soon.
They said some banks have also been approached to help Air India to face the "real cash crunch" and pay the staff salaries.
Government has made it clear that it attached "utmost importance to the credible revival of Air India", with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh saying he would ask Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee to take "expeditious decisions" to revamp the
ailing carrier.
It is expected that the government would take a decision to infuse the third tranche of equity of Rs 1,200 crore soon. So far it has injected Rs 1,200 crore and Rs 800 crore in two tranches in 2009-10, raising the airline's equity base to Rs 2,145 crore.
Government has acknowledged that Air India was "passing through a difficult phase for the last few years", an official spokesperson said today.
Soon after the merger of Indian Airlines and Air India, the global economy went through a severe recession and jet fuel prices hit an all time high. A highly competitive aviation market made an early recovery all the more difficult. All these factors resulted in losses during the last few years.
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