APRIL 23: The Government's move to offload nearly 10 Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) in one go today was thwarted when some of its Ministers, in charge of these PSUs, raised serious objections over the policy and procedure of disinvestment itself.The one-hour meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Disinvestment (CCD), presided over by Prime Minister Vajpayee, was supposed to clear disinvestment of several PSUs, including Air India, Hotel Corporation of India, Pawan Hans, Indian Oil Corporation, Kudremukh Iron Ore project and the National Mineral Development Corporation.But many Ministers objected to the principle itself and the committee couldn't even take up specific cases. Vajpayee heard his ministers for an hour and made it clear that the issues raised must be addressed before proceeding further.Strangely, the first objection came from BJP's own Minister Ram Naik who holds the charge of the Petroleum Ministry. He reportedly said that the process of disinvestment was decided by a joint secretary who directly reports to the Department of Disinvestment while it was he who was answerable to the employees and to Parliament.Heavy Industries Minister Manohar Joshi also wanted a thorough discussion on the policy of selection of the PSUs indicating that only the sick ones should be chosen first.Civil Aviation Minister Sharad Yadav felt that foreign airlines should not be handed over the charge of the national flagship company like AI or Indian Airlines. The foreign equity participation should not be more than 25 per cent. He reeled off figures in the meeting saying that in no country a foreign airline was offered 51 per cent equity as was being proposed in the case of Air India.External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh and Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha argued for speeding up the whole process saying that it had already been long delayed. Sinha, however, added that social and political compulsions must be borne in mind.Since another meeting of the Cabinet Committee of Economic Affairs was scheduled to take place at 12 pm, the CCD could not take up cases of individual PSUs for disinvestment.No date has been fixed for the next meeting of the CCD. But it is certain that it will now be held only after the Finance Bill is passed by Parliament on May 3.Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pramod Mahajan said that the Disinvestment Minister would hold a round of meetings with the ministries concerned to decide on the modalities of the disinvestment proposals.However, Mahajan sought to clarify that there was ``complete consensus on the need to pursue the Government's disinvestment policy.''Replying to questions on what the modalities meant, he said: ``In some cases, you may say 51 per cent of the stake will be disinvested, while in some others it may be 20 per cent .. So these issues will have to be finalised between the nodal ministries and the disinvestment ministry.''``Disinvestment is the real process to make public sector units stronger, to see that it survives and employees continue to work ... Under no circumstances will the Vajpayee Government see that the employees' strength goes down,'' Mahajan said.Asked whether there would be retrenchment in PSUs, he said: ``It has to be employee-friendly''.
