Govt Will Sell 22 PSUs, Govt Firms To Private Companies; Aims To Raise Rs 1.7 Lakh Crore This Year

The government is planning strategic sale of 22 firms of which 17 are ongoing transactions.

DIPAM is processing those transactions which include:

• Project & Development India Limited
• Engineering Project (India) Limited
• Central Electronics Limited
• BEML Limited
• Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (except Numaligarh Refinery Limited)
• Container Corporation of India Limited
• Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd

Transactions To Conclude This Fiscal?

The Centre will start accepting financial bids for privatising six CPSEs, including BPCL, BEML and Shipping Corp., by January.

DIPAM Secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey said that the BPCL transaction is in the due diligence stage.

He added that financial bids for BEML, Shipping Corp, Pawan Hans, Central Electronics, NINL can “take place in December-January so that we can close it by this year itself”.

CEL Sold

After 5 years, the government has given the go ahead for the sale of its entire 100% stake in Central Electronics Limited (CEL).

It has been awarded to the winning bidder Nandal Finance and Leasing Private Limited for Rs 210 crore.

The disinvestment process had begun in October 2016, but it had received no financial bids in the initial attempt.

It expects the transaction to be completed during the current fiscal, i.e. 2021-22.

No Proposal For Gen Insurance Co Sale

Minister of State for Finance Bhagwat K Karad said that there is no proposal under consideration of the government for merger of public sector general insurance companies.

There are four general insurance companies – New India Assurance Company, National Insurance Company Limited (NICL), United India Insurance Company Limited (UIICL) and Oriental Insurance Company Limited (OICL).

Privatisation Exercise Gains Momentum

Strategic sale of these entities would help the government meet its disinvestment target of Rs 1.75-lakh-crore for the current fiscal.

The sale of Air India to Tata Group marked the first privatisation exercise of a public sector enterprise in 19 years.

The completion of the deal should help accelerate the privatisation of CPSEs going forward.

Another major upcoming milestone is the initial public offering (IPO) of Life Insurance Corp. of India (LIC) Ltd in the March quarter.

So far, the government has mopped up Rs 9,330 crore through minority stake sales in PSUs and the sale of SUUTI (Specified Undertaking of the Unit Trust of India) stake in Axis Bank.