Left finally gets Govt to stall BHEL stake sale

Official sources however were quick to point out that this does not mean that the Government is going back on its decision to sell its 10 per cent stake in BHEL.

They said the minister’s statement flows from the assurance that Finance Minister P Chidambaram gave to Parliament a couple of days back, responding to a calling attention motion of CPI leader Gurudas Dasgupta, that the Government would consider the objections raised by the unions.

In fact, the Finance Minister had informed the House that the Government had not taken any further decision after the unions opposed the sale and added that their objections were under consideration.

Deb, who was speaking on the sidelines of a conference organised by SCOPE in here, said the Government was not going to ‘‘steamroll’’ its decisions and would arrive at a decision to go ahead with the sale of the minority stake in Navratna companies only after consultations with all the stake-holders.

‘‘We are a transparent government and will look at all the objections to the sale of government shares in BHEL,’’ he said. ‘‘We do not want to steamroll our way.’’

It was in May that the UPA government decided to sell its 10 per cent stake in BHEL through a book building process, bringing the Government equity in the company down from 67.72 per cent to 57.72 per cent. The Left parties immediately opposed this move and said that it went against the Common Minimum Programme. They voiced their fear that the Government would slowly lose control of the company as the residual shares could be acquired through creeping acquisitions.

Speaking on disinvestment in other public sector undertakings, the minister said the proposal to sell Government stake in Tide Water Oil would be put before the Board for Reconstruction of Public Sector Enterprises when the case for revival for the holding company Andrew Yule is taken to it. The Government had earlier indicated that it wants to sell its entire 27 per cent stake in Tide Water Oil.