Phone Rings
Jaideep Bose: Hello? Niira Radia: Hi Jaideep Bose: Hi.
Niira Radia: He has got it. Jaideep Bose: Sorry?
Niira Radia: He has.. between you and me.. Jaideep Bose: Okay.
Niira Radia: Off the record (Laughs). He has received the request. Jaideep Bose: Okay.
Niira Radia: Jadhav had met him. jaideep Bose: Sorry?
Niira Radia: Jadhav.. the MD? Jaideep Bose: Yeah, yeah. Niira Radia: MD had met him. But he has not made up his mind whether he wants to do it. Too committed no?
Jaideep Bose: Yeah I think it will be a bad job to do.
Niira Radia: Huh? Jaideep Bose: Yeah.
Jaideep Bose: No it is.. because I don't know how much.. you know.. I don't know if anyone can you know..
Jaideep Bose: I think it's too much.. Niira Radia: Between you and me.. I mean that's effective that I know. And you know that the whole intention of Praful Patel was to asset-strip the airline.
Jaideep Bose: Yeah. Niira Radia: And its not going to happen, because... jaideep Bose: Sorry?
Niira Radia: It's not going to happen now because the financial crisis has hit aviation in a big way. And you know they want someone like Mr Tata to... sort of take...
Niira Radia: I don't know between you and me I don't think he's going to take it. He's told me.. I told him (inaudible) He said just don't quote me Niira, but he's not made up his mind...
Jaideep Bose: Very honestly, in his place I wouldn't take it.
Niira Radia: No. no, he is not at all in the mood to do it.
Jaideep Bose: Because, Praful Patel will now getting heat, he's trying very hard to...
Jaideep Bose: They have handed over the aviation business too.
Niira Radia: He is destroyed. He's sold his bilaterals. $28 a seat to Emirates...
Jaideep Bose: I've heard $3,500. How much have you heard?
Niira Radia: No, no.. you know, whenever you do a bilateral.. you know how we kick back Sedan(?).. is that you pay per seat.
Jaideep Bose: Yeah. I heard $3,500 per seat.
Niira Radia: No. no. Actual weight is about $25 pear seat.
Niira Radia: $7-$28 but that is aiming...with this guy in Delhi... he's one of his henchmen in Delhi who did that deal... Jaideep Bose: Ramesh Nambiar.
Niira Radia: Yeah and Deepak Talwar was involved in it.
Niira Radia: And these guys have raked in about 3-4 hundred million dollars in bilaterals. Jaideep Bose: Hmm..
Niira Radia: And that's only on Gulf sites....(inaudible)
Jaideep Bose: You're breaking up, I can't hear you.
Niira Radia: ...Singapore Airlines came to me and said they wanted huge amounts of money for bilaterals. And I refused to..
Jaideep Bose: Who.. who came to you?
Niira Radia: Singapore Airlines. They used to be my client before. So they used to do a lot of leasing of their aircraft in the African market. So he said.. they said that they want to do it. They didn't take any extra flights from them.
Niira Radia: But they had a going way. So there was this tarrif card that was running in the ministry for five years. And I don't think Ratan's going to do it. I told him that you carry the story he said yeah there is no problem.
Niira Radia: No comments from our side. But between you and me you can probably say that he is probably not going to take it.
Jaideep Bose: Can I say people who know him don't believe he would take such an assignment?
Niira Radia: Yeah, maybe you can say that. Jaideep: Huh? Niira Radia: Yeah.
Jaideep Bose: See, the thing is, he'll think twice before such an assignment.
Niira Radia: You know I think he is pretty cut up about it. You could see them all get involved in this whole Boeing deal with this guy Sedan.
Niira Radia: He doesn't know what he has to unravel.. so there have been huge amounts of kickbacks that have taken place.. and all these aircraft purchases and all that.. in no way Ratan's gonna try... you know they're gonna use him to try and clean up the mess that they have made.. and the Prime Minister is really going for them now.
Jaideep Bose: Hmm.. yeah I know, I actually.. I have seen a serious change in his body language in the last month.
Jaideep Bose: Earlier he used to be very cocky. But last one month he is kind of looking.. quite nervous. Niira Radia: Praful, no? Jaideep Bose: I think Manmohan Singh is (?) himself.
Jaideep Bose: And.. because 2-3 weeks ago he was very, very nervous. But he raped the airlines. Raped it.
Niira Radia: Yeah because their whole intention was to take over the ground handling, to take over the MRO what we call Maintainence Repair and Overall services.
JB: Hmm
Niira Radia: And the whole intention was to asset-strip so that they could give it to Vijay Mallya and Naresh. And then just finish off the airline. And the bilaterals were already given off in any case so you had made this airline a regional airline already.
Niira Radia: And it was no longer a longhaul. And all those assets would have been transferred over.
Niira Radia: And you know, Jojo, everytime you book a slot for an airline, with the manufacturer- that slot itself for a production line, actually carries the value.
Niira Radia: So you can actually go and tell Air India that look, Jet wants that slot.. so Jet could pay $5 million towards slot manufacturing you know..
Niira Radia: so its a huge money making racket.
jaideep Bose: Someone kind of worked.. gave me a kind of envelope calculation of...
JB: I don't know... some 15-18,000 crores.
JB: Over the last 5 years.. Praful Patel.. I don't know if its more or less.. and I don't know whether...
JB: someone in the airline business
Niira Radia: What.. in terms of kickbacks? Jaideep Bose: Yeah.. through bilaterals... even stuff which... actually Air India has been forced to give up a lot of space at Delhi and Bombay, apparently to Indigo...no not Indigo... Ya Indigo.
Niira Radia: Indigo yeah.. Indigo has got Praful in it no? Jaideep Bose: Yeah?
Niira Radia: Yeah Praful is a silent partner in Rahul's company, Rahul Bhatia's company.
Niira Radia: He is very much there.
Niira Radia: I mean I know because you know Jojo I was trying to get that myself in terms of starting an airline... and he told me very clearly- don't do this because Rahul's(?) going to come in and I mean.. the sort of kickbacks they asked from me for getting the license, I said, go to hell. I'm not gonna give you anything.
Niira Radia: So, at the end of the day.. I won't say its 15-18,000 crores. But I certainly think that they have made about 7-10,000 crores..
Jaideep Bose: No, its bilaterals, aircraft buying and...
Niira Radia: Ground handling? JB: I was given 3-4 kind of heads. Niira Radia: Ya.
Niira Radia: Spares? Engine? Jaideep Bose: Someone very senior in the airline business kind of made this...
JB: This was several months ago, so I don't remember the number exactly. I remember it being in the vicinity of 15-16 (crores).
Niira Radia: You are probably right. They also gave.. you know they removed Sunil Arora from that position because Sunil had actually exposed them and sent a huge dossier to the cabinet secretary and the Prime Minister- as to what had actually gone wrong in the airline deal.
Niira Radia: Actually I have got that document. I'll send it to you. Jaideep Bose: Yeah? Niira Radia: Hmm.. I have got the whole dossier.
Jaideep Bose: No.. he also sent it to Sonia Gandhi I think. Niira Radia: Yes he did.
Niira Radia: He had exposed the whole thing and in fact all the minutes of the meetings are in there... where he was forced to take his hand and he had got them to sign off on those minutes.
Niira Radia: That's when they threw him out. And after that they tried to file some CBI cases against him. And CBI declared that there was nothing against Sunil Arora at all. In fact if there's anybody who can turn this airline around, you should bring him back.
Jaideep Bose: Yeah I've heard very good things about him.. I've barely met him just a couple of times. Everyone, even in Air India they say very good things about him.
Niira Radia: Yeah he is remarkable. He really was a good officer. He brought Indian Airlines into profit. He was quite good so.. they did a lot of injustice to him.
Niira Radia: And Praful wanted him out because he won't cut deals so.. and then this whole deal.. so he wrote this... you know when the deal was going on, he sent this whole dossier to Sonia Gandhi.. and then Sharad Pawar of course used his influence and made sure that he was removed.
Niira Radia: What a scam huh! It all comes home to roost na? Jaideep Bose: But with somebody else .. not necessarily for the one who did it, no? (sighs)
Niira Radia: Hmm? Jaideep Bose: Its comes home to roost other people, not necessarily for the person who was responsible it.
Niira Radia: No I don't know you know.. at the end of the day I don't know how long they can keep on cheating. I don't know. They have really, really.. I am sorry to use the word 'raped' the airline you know. They have killed it., you know. (tape ends)