Meet on other sell-off cases today

After a lull of more than three months, the Government is all set to expedite the process of disinvestment by holding a meeting of core grou...

After a lull of more than three months, the Government is all set to expedite the process of disinvestment by holding a meeting of core group of secretaries on disinvestment on Wednesday to decide which PSUs could be privatised in the current fiscal.

Though the issues related to the sale of oil companies HPCL and BPCL are not likely to come up, the holding of the meeting itself shows Government’s commitment to continue the disinvestment process.

In its meeting scheduled for Wednesday, the core group of secretaries on disinvestment (CGD) will take up the issue of proposed appointment of third book runner for managing Maruti Udyog Ltd’s public offer of 36 lakh shares. The disinvestment ministry has already appointed Kotak Mahindra Finance and ICICI Securities as book runner and a co-book runner for the said offer.

A senior disinvestment ministry official told The Indian Express ‘we will be reviewing the progress of disinvestment so far in this fiscal and what is likely to happen during the next few months’. However, the case of National Aluminium Company (Nalco) is not going to figure in the meeting where due diligence process was halted a few weeks ago after a hostile reception to a team of Hindalco officials in October last. According to sources, the ministry is going slow on Nalco because of political differences.

The official said that ‘‘nothing has moved in Nalco to take it to CGD meeting.’’ Even State Trading Corporation is also out of the review because certain issues are still to be resolved related to the company, the official added. Few new cases which were recently recommended by Disinvestment Commission for privatisation including Hindustan Shipyard, Cochin Shipyard and IRCON could however appear in the CGD discussion.

The Disinvestment Ministry is also expected to hold a meeting of cabinet committee on disinvestment (CCD) after the Gujarat elections on December 12.

A majority of items scheduled to be discussed in the meeting belong to Heavy Industry Ministry. These include finalisation of transaction documents for National Instrumentation Ltd, and also taking a view on the Hindustan Cables Ltd, Jessop & Company and Hindustan Salts which have failed to enthuse bidders so far.

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The CGD meeting would take stock of shareholders and share purchase documents for ICVL and also clear the financial bid for NEPA Ltd, government holding is currently at about 97 per cent and 51 per cent would be divested to a strategic partner.