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Decade ago, Minister asked for bribe:Reveals Tata
By siliconindia
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Tuesday, 16 November 2010, 03:18 IST |
1 Comments
Dehra Dun:Ratan Tata revealed that a minister asked his company for a bribe when he was trying to set up a domestic airline, decade ago.The Tatas had tried to set up a domestic airline in collaboration with Singapore Airlines.
Tata did not name the minister and said the incident took place "10-12 years ago." He said that he hopes the matter is not taken up for investigation now because "it could cast shadows on the wrong person".
C M Ibrahim, who was Aviation Minister in 1996 in Deve Gowda's government, says he did stop the Tata project - but that his reasons for doing so were in national interest and saved the government thousands of crores."Tata should name the minister or I will commit suicide."added Ibrahim.
Explaining what happened, Tata said, "We approached three Prime Ministers also. But an individual thwarted our efforts to form the airlines."
Tata said he was on a flight and "another industrialist who was sitting next to me said 'I don't understand... you people are very stupid... you know the minister wants 15 crores... why don't you pay it?' And I just said 'You can't understand it... I just want to go to bed at night... knowing that I haven't got the airline by paying for it.' And I can tell you I would have been feeling tremendously shameful had we got the airline and we had paid for it."