Air India to get additional Rs.800 crore fresh equity

National passenger carrier Air India will get an additional capital infusion of Rs.800 crore, parliament was informed on Friday.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said this while moving the supplementary demands for grants for 2015-16 in the Lok Sabha.

According to the parliamentary papers, apart from Air India, the civil aviation ministry will get additional funds for Haj charters, repair of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) premises and payment of service tax for flight operations inspectors.

Earlier, Jaitley had infused an additional equity of Rs.2,500 crore in the cash-strapped national passenger carrier for 2015-16 fiscal.

The expenditure budget document showed that a budgetary support of Rs.2,500 crore has been earmarked as equity infusion in Air India.

During the last financial year, Rs.6,500 crore was infused in Air India. The national passenger carrier, which has an accumulated debt of around Rs.40,000 crore, was given Rs.6,000 crore as budgetary support in 2013-14.

The budgetary support is a part of a turnaround and a financial restructuring plan worth Rs.30,000 which was passed in April, 2012.

The turnaround plan worth Rs.30,000 crore of equity infusion is expected to be completed over a period of nine-years starting 2012-13.

Apart from Rs.30,000 crore of equity infusion, the turnaround plan envisions Air India getting Rs.7,400 crore by issuing government-backed non-convertible debentures (NCDs) to its lenders, like financial institutions, banks, LIC (Life Insurance Corporation of India) and employees provident fund organisation (EPFO).