Air India's privatisation will have to be backed by hefty 'dowry' to buyer

Essentially, govt is paying the buyer a huge cash incentive to take a white elephant off its hands

Air India is on the block, finally. With accumulated losses of over Rs 50,000 crore, a debt overhang of around Rs 55,000 crore, and an annual interest burden of Rs 4,500 crore which chews up more than a fifth of its revenues, this decision should ordinarily have been a no-brainer. But it has taken the Modi government three long years to come to this conclusion.

The decision could have been taken with fewer tears a decade ago, when the airline under Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel induced Air India to order a humongous number of aircraft from