Tata Sons chairman Natrajan Chandrasekharan has been appointed the chairman of Air India, the cash-strapped airline entity recently acquired by the Tata Group from the government. Reports said Chandrasekaran's appointment was cleared at an Air India board meeting last week.
Alice GeeVarghese Vaidyan, former CMD of General Insurance Corporation, and Sanjiv Mehta, chairman of Hindustan Unilever, have also been inducted as independent directors on the board.
Chandrasekharan was appointed chairman of Tata Sons in February for a second term of five years.
Tata Sons is yet to appoint the chief executive officer and managing director of Air India.
On February 14, Tata Sons had announced the appointment of Ilker Ayci, former chairman of Turkish Airlines, as the chief executive officer and managing director of Air India.
However, Ayci declined the offer following a controversy over his foreign identity. RSS-affiliate Swadeshi Jagran Manch had said the government should not give clearance to the appointment of Ayci as the CEO of Air India "keeping in view national security".
The Tata Group had on October 8 last year won the bid to acquire debt-laden state-run Air India by offering Rs 18,000 crore for it.