In an informal chat, he told the media at the Chennai airport that disinvestment was the only route to salvage both Air India and Indian Airlines. He pointed out that the Disinvestment Commission's recommendations had been accepted by the civil aviation ministry and the airline board.

``We are sending a note to the Union Cabinet shortly to ratify this decision,'' he said adding to have a strategic partner and to cater to the upgradation of fleet for AI, an equity infusion to the tune of at least Rs 1,000 crore was required.

The minister explained how the accruing losses in Air India due to various reasons had been reduced to Rs 120 crore against the budgeted loss of Rs 340 crore. ``By next year, our operational losses will be down to Rs 50 crore,'' he added.He reminded that AI was running in profits for over 37 years of its 45 years existence.

Meanwhile, the decision on the acquisition of long haul fleet expansion plan was undergoing `technical evaluation', the minister said adding that it was a transparent process and for each type of requirement, the airline had a suitable choice of aircraft. With regard to augmentation of IA's fleet, the minister said the airline was actually looking for replacement for its 737-200 series aircraft which are with Alliance Air (subsidiary of IA) and the Airbus A-300 in IA. Similarly, AI had five types of aircraft and efforts were on to bring it down to three types of competitive aircraft by getting rid of the aged ones.

``We took a momentous decision of disinvesting in IA in the 1998 Union budget to 51 per cent and now only Rs 325 crore had been provided which was directly linked with the upgradation of its fleet.'' Emphasising the need to democratice Civil Aviation in the country, which would mean creating reach andviability. Ananth Kumar said this was possible only with smaller aircraft of 50 and 64 seaters. Indian Airlines Board had decided to acquire six ATR-42 50-seater aircraft and the proposal was awaiting the Government's assent. The Government was planning to ask Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) to undertake the project to assemble the aircraft.

In this context, Ananth Kumar said Jet Airways had been accorded permission to acquire five 64-seater aircraft and another proposal to this effect of Sahar Airways of 30-seater was pending. ``I think, these proposals if implemented would bring in not less than 20 smaller aircraft into scheduled operators of the country and thus connect at least 100 destinations including sub-regional and feeder routes like Coimbatore, Madurai, Tiruchi, Hubli, Belgaum, and Kholapur.

Asked about his assessment of the top executives of AI and IA, the minister said he was happy with their performance. Stating that the IA's market share in the traffic was increasing, during 1993, ithad plummeted to 56 per cent. And now, the share of the traffic had surged to 64 per cent by carrying an average of 24,000 passengers a day. ``There will be both financial and organisational restructuring, which will give both AI and IA the required professionalism and competitive edge.''

Pointing out that IA had provided connections to more than 300 destinations, the minister had a word of praise for the recently introduced metro-shuttles between Delhi and Mumbai apart from Chennai, Calcutta and Bangalore, despite 70 per cent of its routes being ``uneconomical'', as the airline was fulfilling national and social obligations. ``I strongly feel there is scope for improvement in IA by making them more responsive to market conditions and forces.

On the recently dedicated Nedumbasseri airport at Kochi, he said that with effect from June 10, Air India would introduce four Gulf destinations. ``All the domestic air traffic operations will be shifted from the existing Naval airbase to the new airport from thatdate.'' Detailing the steps initiated by the Infrastructure Task Force to long lease five major international airports (Chennai, Delhi, Calcutta, Mumbai and Bangalore), the minister said the Task Force recommendations would be presented to the PM and the Union Cabinet.y