Left sees global conspiracy in Bhel selloff

Left parties are determined to prove that the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) is part of a global conspiracy to strip Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (Bhel) of its intellectual assets.

The Left charges that by its disinvestment, not only has the national common minimum programme been breached, but also the UPA itself is preventing Bhel from emerging as a global player.

The forthcoming issue of People's Democracy, the CPI(M) mouthpiece, has an article that argues that like the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), the present government, too, has "hamstrung Indian PSUs even in the domestic market, let alone encourage them to become global players".

This is despite the assurance in the national common minimum programme that profit-making PSUs will be encouraged to become globally competitive, the article says.

In a new argument thrown up by the CPI(M), the article gives examples to back its contention that Bhel is being "frozen out" of the market for emerging technologies related to the power sector.

It says sister PSUs such as National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) and Neyveli Lignite Corporation (NLC) have made Bhel enter into collaborations with multinational corporations (MNCs) for its bid for super-critical boilers and fluidised bed boilers, pushing up the bidding price, thereby denying Bhel an opportunity to break into new areas of expertise.

This, the article argues, is due to the government's lack of protection for Indian PSUs, compared with countries such as Russia and South Korea which have reared their domestic industries to a point where they are globally competitive.

It also argues that due to the inverted duty structure prevailing in the Indian market, raw material and intermediate goods that Bhel imports has higher duty than the finished product.

"We have discriminated for years against Bhel by an inverted duty structure that helps its competitors to import equipment at lower prices; we have denied it ability to give supplier's credit and now have frozen it out of vital emerging areas of technology. If this were not enough, we want to seat their competitors in the cockpit of the company "" the boardroom," the article says.

It argues that "it is these series of steps protecting the MNCs in the Indian market that is now being capped by the UPA government's decision to sell 10 per cent of BHEL shares."

These arguments against disinvestment in Bhel put meat on the Left's main contention that the Left had only agreed to let profit-making PSUs access the capital markets for raising funds, as stated in the NCMP.

The government's decision, according to the Left, violates the NCMP on two counts.

First, that it is the government and not Bhel which has decided to disinvest 10 per cent stake in the company.

Second, the money raised through the disinvestment exercise will not go back to Bhel but to a fund floated by the government, meant for social sector schemes.