With the deferment of the strategic sale of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL)and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL), the government's disinvestment programme has suffered a setback and it may miss the target of Rs 12,000 crore from divestment in the current financial year.
The Cabinet Committee on Disinvestment (CCD) last night decided to defer the sale of the two petroleum companies along with public offers in Indian Oil Corporation, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation and Gas Authority of India Ltd for three months at the insistence of petroleum minister Ram Naik, whose stand was backed by several other ministers in the Cabinet.
When contacted, a senior disinvestment official said it was not clear if yesterday's decision meant that the February in-principle clearance to the sale of the two downstream marketing companies stood reversed, but said that the divestment programme of the two companies had been postponed till December this year.
"Consultations will now be held between the oil and divestment ministries to work out a solution for the logjam. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who held a meeting of the key ministers before the CCD meeting yesterday, decided to put the process on hold till a consensus was formed," he said.
A visibly downcast disinvestment minister Arun Shourie told reporters that his ministry was no longer confident of achieving the budgetary target of Rs 12,000 crore for the current fiscal. The minister, who had on Friday complained that the divestment process was being "ambushed", refused to take any questions on what transpired in the CCD meeting.
The meeting did, however, partly endorse his proposal of barring public sector units (PSUs) and trusts with over 51 per cent government equity from bidding for other PSUs.
While the decision will not affect the companies for which expressions of interest (EoIs) for future divestments have already been submitted by PSUs, the administrative ministries will have to seek CCD
