Finance minister P Chidambaram and industry minister Murasoli Maran held a closed-door meeting on Wednesday evening to discuss the issue.
The aim of this meeting was to consider the possibility of further extending role of the Disinvestment Commission, within the already-defined parameters of a non-statutory, advisory structure.
This will include fine-tuning the commission's role by widening its scope and providing it with a more autonomous structure, government sources said.
It will precede the actual constitution of the commission which will be effected only when the government issues a gazette notification. Despite the government's formal announcement, the commission cannot yet start functioning since it merely has a cabinet sanction, but is yet to be ratified by an official notification.
The meeting was also slated to discuss the issue of winding up the core group on divestment after the commission starts functioning. The core group comprises the secretaries of finance, expenditure and Bureau of Public Enterprises and the chief economic advisor and has been entrusted with the task of carrying out the first two tranches of the public sector divestment for 1996-97.
The discussion becomes necessary since both the disinvestment commission and the core group are mandated by the cabinet to carry out the disinvestment process for 1996-97.
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This could lead to some ambiguity as the task of both agencies are similar in some respects.
The two ministers have to decide whether the core group can be wound up with just a formal note transferring the powers to the commission or whether a formal cabinet note would have to be moved ratifying this change.
The ministers also have to decide whether the canvas of the Commission can be broadened by bringing all PSUs under its purview -- instead of only those referred to it by the core group -- to examine, advise on and divest over a period of time.
The commission has been given the brief of merely examining and prioritising the PSUs referred to it by the core group for long term divestment.