Centre eyes PSU silver for money: PMO clears stake sale in 11 public sector

New Delhi: Aiming to shore up finances in the face of the growing domestic economic downturn and depleting foreign investment, the Union government aims to sell its stake in some key profit-making blue-chip public sector entities such as Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL) and Hindustan Copper Ltd, as well as the iconic ITDC-run Ashok Hotel, and even in the loss-making MTNL, National Textile Corporation Ltd and others in the next five years.

Highly placed sources told this newspaper that these companies form part of the list of 11 state-owned units to which the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) is learnt to have given its clearance for selling government stake in the current as well as in the next four fiscals.

There is a possibility that the government could even go for a strategic sale option in some of the 11 public service enterprises, and it is reliably learnt that the proposal for stake sale in these companies may soon be sent for the Union Cabinet’s approval.

The interesting aspect to be noted here is that the Centre is not averse to selling its stake in profit-making firms such as Miniratna Hindustan Copper and Maharatna BHEL.

The other companies where the government aims to sell its stake are Balmer Lawrie Investments Ltd & Balmer Lawrie and Company Ltd, Telecommunications Consultant India Ltd, FCI Aravalli Gypsum and Minerals India Ltd, MECON Ltd, Braithwaite and Company Ltd as well as Andrew Yule & Co. Ltd.

Sources further maintained that the Central government is likely to focus on the disinvestments process in these 11 companies during the next five years.

In the past four years, since 2015, the NDA government has approved disinvestment in 25 public sector undertakings.

In her maiden Budget speech on July 5, 2019, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had set a disinvestment target of Rs 1.05 lakh crore for 2019-2020. This was Rs 15,000 crore more than the target of Rs 90,000 crore set by Piyush Goyal as the interim finance minister in the interim Budget, which he had presented on February 1, 2019.

Disinvestment proceeds for FY19 had stood at Rs 85,000 crore, up 6.2 per cent from the Budget estimate of Rs 80,000 crore.