No end to Air India's miseries; paintings worth Rs 200 crore go missing from Mumbai headquarters

Nothing's going right for the national carrier Air India. Soon after the Indian government made its intention clear to sell the loss-making airline, it has now emerged that paintings worth Rs 200  crore have gone missing from Air India's headquarters in Mumbai. The paintings included work by prominent artists such as MF Husain and Jatin Das. The fact that the paintings had gone missing came to light after Jatin Das was contacted to verify a piece of work he had painted for Air India prior to its sale.

The paintings were reportedly kept in a hall in the Air India headquarters. The airline apparently wanted to to open a public museum where the paintings would be showcased. The collections included works by the biggest names of Indian art including Arpana Caur, Anjolie Ela Menon, B Prabha, KA Ara, MF Husain and V S Gaitonde.

The situation is an embarrassment to the debt-laden Air India which is going through troubled times. Union Minister Jayant Sinha has meanwhile assured that authorities are looking into the matter. "We are monitoring the media reports very closely. Air India has been keeping quite meticulous records over the years and making sure that all of the inventory is properly accounted for," the Minister of State for Civil Aviation told reporters.

Air India has also set up an internal inquiry into the missing paintings issue, according to Ashwani Lohani, the chairman and managing director of Air India.

Apart from being a loss making enterprise, the national carrier has been in news for all the wrong reasons. Just a few days ago, an Air India flight, 880 that took off from Bagdogra airport left its passengers breathless as the air condition stopped working due to some technical glitch.

Passengers said they discovered even before take off that the AC wasn't functioning. But when they brought this to the notice of the Air India staff, they were told that the system would work just fine after the flight takes off.

The finance minister Arun Jaitley recently announced that the cabinet had given in-principle approval for disinvestment in AI, and a group of ministers (GoM) would be formed to look into the divestment process. Air India has a debt of more than Rs 52,000 crore.