Celebrating disinvestment

The fiasco over the auction of a five per cent government stake in the Oil Natural Gas Corporation last week has given rise to intense debate in North Block over the efficacy of this mode of disinvestment. A senior finance ministry official suggested that the arguments were being wrongly framed. You can’t compare the auction route with the normal IPO and FPO mode just as you can’t compare Holi and Diwali, he said. Both are big festivals but are very different in the way they are celebrated.