MoCA secy chairs meeting with Jet Airways officials, bankers

New Delhi [India], Mar 26 (ANI): Secretary Ministry of Civil Aviation, Pradeep Singh Kharola, on Tuesday has called for a meeting with bankers and officials of Jet Airways to discuss issues pertaining to the airline.
This comes a day after Naresh Goyal and his wife Anita stepped down from the Jet Airways’ board of directors.
Apart from Kharola, Director General of Civil Aviation BS Bhullar and SBI chairman Rajnish Kumar are also attending the meeting, which is being held at the Ministry office here.
According to sources, the meeting is being held to discuss operations of Jet Airways and management functioning after the promoters stepped down.
Earlier, Jet’s board had said there will be immediate funding support of up to Rs 1,500 crore by lenders by way of issue of appropriate debt instrument against the security of the assets of Jet Airways.
According to a statement issued by Kuldeep Sharma, vice president--Global Compliance and Company Secretary, "The bidding process will be initiated by lenders for sale/issue of shares to new investor (s)," and the "process is expected to be completed in June quarter" of the current financial year.
Jet has been suffering bruising competition from low-cost airlines, fluctuating crude prices and a weak rupee. The airline has over one billion dollars in debt and has to repay money to banks, lessors of planes and suppliers besides clearing pending salaries to its pilots. (ANI)