Kharola takes over as Air India CMD
NEW DELHI: Senior bureaucrat Pradeep Singh Kharola on Monday took charge as the chairman and managing director (CMD) of Air India.
The development comes after the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) on November 28 named him as the new CMD with a rank and pay of a secretary in the central government.
A 1985-batch IAS officer of the Karnataka cadre, Kharola was managing director of Bengaluru Metro. He replaces Rajiv Bansal, financial adviser to the petroleum and natural gas ministry, and also holding additional charge of Air India CMD.
The appointment comes at a time when a ministerial group has been formed to look into the modalities of Air India’s divestment process. The Air India-specific Alternative Mechanism, headed by finance minister Arun Jaitley, has been mandated to guide the strategic divestment process and to decide on key issues such as treatment of its debt and hiving-off of its assets.
The demerger and strategic divestment of its three profitmaking subsidiaries, the quantum of disinvestment, and the universe of bidders is also on the group’s agenda. Recently, the government appointed consultancy firm EY as transaction adviser for the divestment.
Till now budget passenger carrier Indigo has evinced interest in buying the airline’s international operations and its subsidiary, Air India Express. In addition, aviation industry majors SATS, Bird Group and Celebi have shown interest in buying Air India’s ground handling unit.