New Delhi: Air India has reportedly delayed salaries of 31,000 of its employees for the month of June due to credit crunch.
When asked, Minister of State for Civil Aviation Praful Patel told NDTV that government is likely to approve the bailout package for Air India soon, but the package would be much less than Rs 15,000 crore that Air India is seeking.
PTI adds: Air India's losses for the last financial year are estimated at around Rs 4,000 crore, up from Rs 2,226 crore in the previous fiscal.
Reports say the national carrier was planning to seek Rs 5,000 crore as additional equity, Rs 7,000 crore as a soft loan payable after five years at a five per cent interest rate, and a grant of Rs 2,000 crore.
Maintaining that the financial crisis was foreseen last year, industry sources said the acute situation could have been avoided had Air India delayed the ongoing deliveries of aircraft, like its competitors Jet Airways and Kingfisher Airlines did.
They said there is no capacity since air traffic had gone down substantially due to the financial meltdown, and so the induction of additional aircraft could have waited.
Air India has placed orders for 111 new planes worth over Rs 45,000 crore and it currently has a paid-up capital of Rs 145 crore and authorised capital of Rs 1,500 crore.