The department of disinvestment (DoD) has recently withdrawn a number of proposals sent to the Cabinet earlier. Among the proposals withdrawn is one dealing with disinvestment of Housing and Urban Development Corporation (Hudco).
While the DoD had originally sent these proposals to the Cabinet in a bid to meet its Rs 16,000 crore annual disinvestment target set out in the Tenth Plan, it subsequently decided to tread cautiously rather than go hastily to meet the target.
The unexpected move was also to preempt hue and cry from the administrative ministries, said sources in the department. While disinvestment has to be undertaken in all the non-strategic companies under the government control, there is a need to soft pedal the issue to some extent, they added.
The official line, however, is that the department withdrew the proposals as the cases needed to be studied further. It was felt that there was a need for
