This refers to ‘Make it a truly public offer’, June 13. It has been correctly pointed out that in a country of more than a billion people, we have only 10 million equity-market investors. In 62 years of free India, we have failed to generate interest among the public to get them to invest in the equity market and participate in the development of the nation. Across the world, developed nations owe their growth and development to the equity market.
The public has given a clear mandate to the UPA government and now the UPA cannot complain of any interference from its allies. It can now go ahead and implement the PSU disinvestment programme with great ease. A few points that need to be kept in mind are: Participation of public at large in wealth distribution through disinvestment, re-investing the funds in infrastructure and expansion of the PSUs. Lastly, we need to have a long-term disinvestment policy with a 3-5 year horizon and perhaps even guidelines with a 5-8 year horizon so that all future governments are bound to follow the same.
Bhaskar Bhattacharya, Mumbai
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