NEW DELHI, 09 October 2021, (TON): Tata Sons Pvt. was selected as the winning bidder for India's flag carrier, ending decades of attempts to privatize a money-losing and debt-laden airline, and potentially ending years of taxpayer-bailouts that's kept the company alive.

Tata Sons, which originally launched Air India Ltd. with a namesake branding in 1932, bid Rs. 18,000 crore ($2.4 billion) as an enterprise value for Air India, Tuhin Kanta Pandey, the top bureaucrat at India's Department of Investment and Public Asset Management, said at a briefing on Friday.

The government aims to complete the transaction by the end of 2021.

The high-profile sale is a boost for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has embarked on a bold privatization plan to plug a widening budget deficit, validating his stand of the state staying away from most businesses.

For Tata Sons, Air India adds a third airline brand to its stable, and gives it access to more than a hundred planes, thousands of trained pilots and crew, and lucrative landing and parking slots all around the world.

Bloomberg News reported last week that a panel of ministers accepted a proposal from bureaucrats, who recommended the conglomerate's bid ahead of an offer from entrepreneur Ajay Singh.