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`Divestment of AI, Hotel Corpn not as a package'

Our Bureau

NEW DELHI, March 7

THE proposed disinvestment of Air India and its subsidiary, Hotel Corporation of India (HCI), is unlikely to go through as a package, the Minister of State for Civil Aviation, Prof. Chaman Lal Gupta, said here on Tuesday.

Talking to newspersons on the sidelines of the concluding function of a two-day workshop on `Enhancing safety management at airports', Prof. Gupta said that the Ministry, without waiting for the disinvestment to start, is taking several steps to improve the profitability of the properties owned by HCI.

``We have spent Rs. 4-4.5 crores to renovate about 100 rooms at the Centaur Hotel in Delhi, which should be completed by the end of this month. Besides, the two properties in Mumbai are doing well and should report good figures for the year ending. It is only the property at Srinagar which is not doing well, but this is due to circumstances beyond our control,'' he said.

The seminar was jointly organised by the Foundation of Aviation and Sustainable Tourism and the Airports Authority of India.

Prof. Gupta said one of the reasons for the HCI hotels not doing well was that not too much attention had been paid to their upkeep. ``The situation earlier was so bad that for several years, even the carpets had not been changed in some of the hotels. B ut we are changing all that,'' he said. He hoped that these steps would ensure a better price for HCI when it is put up for bidding.

Turning his attention to the privatisation of airports, he said that even in the post-privatisation period, the Government would look after key areas such as security and air traffic control.