Life Insurance Corporation of India and Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust have placed bids to buy cash-strapped Air India’s iconic 23-storey tower located at Mumbai’s Marine Drive in Nariman Point facing the Arabia sea.
A shipping ministry official said that JNPT, India’s biggest container port, has put in a bid to buy the tower from the national carrier. LIC could not be reached for comment.
It is not clear whether the Maharashtra government has put in a bid for the tower. Air India could not be reached immediately for comment. Only state governments and public sector undertakings were allowed to participate in the auction.
The tower was built in 1974 with design by John Burgee of New York-based firm Johnson and Burgee. It was the corporate head-quarters of Air India till 2013 when it shifted base to New Delhi following a 2007 merger with Indian Airlines, another state-owned company that carried passengers on domestic routes.
Air India revamped its logo after the merger by replacing the ‘Centaur’ with a red coloured flying swan with the 'Konark Chakra' in orange placed inside it, which now sits on top of the building. An earlier plan to sell the tower to JNPT without a tender was called off to avoid allegations of irregularities.
The move to sell the 2,20,000 sq ft building comes after a plan to privatise the loss-making carrier fell through for lack of bidder interest, forcing the government to abandon the move with the next general election a few months away. The idea behind the sale of the tower was to give a much-needed liquidity boost to Air India while ensuring that the iconic building remained in government hands.
The airline has identified residential and commercial properties for sale in at least 16 cities. Air India posted a standalone net loss of ₹5,337 crore in FY18 compared to a loss of ₹6,281 crore in FY17. At the end of the last financial year, it had ₹21,955 crore in short-term borrowings and ₹30,227 in long-term loans.