Vikram Dev Dutt appointed as CMD of Air India

The Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions on Tuesday appointed Vikram Dev Dutt as Chairman and Managing Director of Air India Limited. He will get the rank and pay of Additional Secretary, the government said in a notification. 

Civil Aviation Secretary Rajiv Bansal was holding additional charge of Air India CMD.

Dutt is a 1993-batch IAS officer of AGMUT (Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Mizoram and Union Territory) cadre.

He has been appointed as the Air India chief in the rank and pay of Additional Secretary, an order issued by the Personnel Ministry said.

It was not immediately clear whether the appointment of Dutt was an indication of a possible delay in handing over of the national carrier to the Tata Sons. 

In October last year, the government accepted the highest bid made by a Tata Sons company for 100 per cent equity shares of Air India and Air India Express along with its 50 per cent stake in ground-handling company AISATS -- the first privatisation in 20 years.

The government had signed the share purchase agreement with Tata Sons for the sale of national carrier Air India for Rs 18,000 crore. Tata's would pay Rs 2,700 crore cash and takeover Rs 15,300 crore of the airline's debt.

At that time, the government had stated that it wanted to complete the transactions, which included Tatas paying Rs 2,700 crore in cash, by December-end, but it has been delayed by a month till January as the completion of procedures taking longer than expected, news agency PTI had reported citing sources.

As per the conditions in SPA, all formalities of handover would have to be completed within 8 weeks, but this date can be mutually extended by the buyer and seller and is being done in this case.

In other appointments, Manish Kumar Gupta was appointed as Vice Chairman of Delhi Development Authority (DDA) and Pankaj Agrawal as the new Director General (Acquisition) in the Defence Ministry.

Gupta, a 1991-batch IAS officer and at present Principal Commissioner in the DDA, was made the Vice Chairman of the Authority.

Ashish Srivastava, Additional Secretary in the Ministry of Women and Child Development will now be Additional Secretary and Financial Adviser, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare.

Hari Ranjan Rao, Additional Secretary, Department of Telecommunications has been appointed as Administrator, Universal Service Obligation Fund, Department of Telecommunications.

V L Kantha Rao, Additional Secretary and Director General (Acquisition), Ministry of Defence has been named as Additional Secretary, Department of Telecommunications in place of Rao.

Pankaj Agrawal, Additional Secretary in the Cabinet Secretariat, will be new Additional Secretary and Director General (Acquisition), Ministry of Defence, the order said.

Santosh Kumar Sarangi, a 1994-batch IAS officer of Odisha cadre, will be Director General, Directorate General of Foreign Trade, Ministry of Commerce & Industry.

He is currently Additional Secretary in Department of School Education and Literacy.

Chanchal Kumar, a 1992 batch IAS officer of Bihar cadre, has been appointed as Managing Director, National Highways & Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd, it said.

Kumar is at present principal secretary to Bihar Chief Minister Nitish KUmar.

B V Umadevi, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change, has been appointed as Additional Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs.

Anuradha Thakur, Additional Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat has been appointed as Additional Secretary, Ministry of Corporate Affairs.

Shashank Goel and Shailesh Kumar Singh have been appointed as Additional Secretary, Ministry of Labour and Employment and Development Commissioner, Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, respectively.

Naresh Pal Gangwar, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change will be Additional Secretary, Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change, the order said.

The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has also approved extension in the central deputation tenure of Ashutosh Jindal, Additional Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat for a period of one year beyond 16.02.2022 i.e. upto 16.02.2023, it said.

(With inputs from PTI)