The Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions has appointed senior bureaucrat Vikram Dev Dutt as chairman and managing director of loss-making national flight carrier Air India, which is all set to be handed over to Tata group. At present, he is  principal secretary for tourism in the Delhi government. He will take the charge from Rajiv Bansal, Secretary in the Ministry of Civil Aviation, and will hold the position till the airline is handed over to the Tata group. Dutt’s appointment was part of a top-level bureaucratic reshuffle.

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Who is Vikram Dev Dutt?

Vikram Dev Dutt is a 1993-batch IAS officer of the AGMUT (Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Mizoram, and Union Territory) cadre. Dutt has a B.Tech degree and a post-graduate diploma in business administration from IMT Ghaziabad.

He has also served as principal secretary for finance in the government of Andaman & Nicobar Islands,  secretary of tourism in the government of Goa, and as managing director of India Tourism Development Corporation.

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According to  reports,  Air India’s takeover by Tata group may be delayed as the completion of procedures is taking longer than expected. Tata Sons won the bid to acquire Air India for Rs 18,000 crore in October 2021. Tata Sons, which originally launched Air India in 1932, has placed a bid under its fully-owned subsidiary Talance Pvt Ltd for Rs 18,000 crore. 

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Tata Sons had bid higher than a consortium led by Spicejet chairman Ajay Singh that had bid  Rs 15,110 crore for Air India. As of August 31, 2021, Air India’s total debt stood at Rs 61,562 crore. According to DIPAM Secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey, the debt of the airline taken over by Talance is Rs 15,000 crore while the rest will be transferred to Air India Asset Holding Ltd.

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According to the disinvestment terms, Tata Sons will retain Rs 15,300 core debt and pay Rs 2,700 crore to the government, totalling the bid amount of Rs 18,000 crore.