Latest News | Cab Secy Reviews CPSE Privatisation Pipeline

New Delhi, May 20 (PTI) Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba on Thursday reviewed the CPSE disinvestment programme, including the privatisation pipeline, and ways to smoothen the bottleneck arising due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Secretaries from the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM), ministries of petroleum, civil aviation and shipping attended the meeting, sources said.

"It was a review meeting to discuss the situation, bottlenecks arising out of the pandemic and how to smoothen the process for investors," a source said.

The government is aiming to conclude privatisation of PSUs such as Air India, BPCL and Shipping Corporation, where the divestment process has already started, in the current fiscal.

The world's worst outbreak of pandemic has disrupted the timetable of scheduled activities such as physical due diligence because of travel restrictions.

"We have a timeline in mind for all the privatisation deals. We will proceed as per the timeline," the source added.

The process of privatisation of Air India, BPCL, Pawan Hans, BEML, Shipping Corp and Neelachal Ispat Nigam Ltd (NINL) has already moved to the second stage after the government received multiple expressions of interest (EoIs) for these CPSEs.

The Budget for 2021-22 has set a disinvestment target of Rs 1.75 lakh crore, higher than the Rs 32,000 crore estimated to be garnered in FY21. Of the Rs 1.75 lakh crore, Rs 1 lakh crore is to come from selling government stake in public sector banks and financial institutions. Rs 75,000 crore would come as CPSE disinvestment receipts.

In her Budget speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said strategic disinvestment of BPCL, Air India, Shipping Corporation of India, Container Corporation of India, IDBI Bank, BEML, Pawan Hans, NINL, among others, and IPO of LIC would be completed in 2021-22.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)