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Journalism of Courage
Finally Finance Minister Jaswant Singh had his way in terms of getting some support from the oil PSUs to dress down the deficit a few weeks before the Budget.
However, instead of the earlier demand by the finance ministry of a special dividend of Rs 5,000 crore , the oil PSUs paid an interim dividend to the government on Thursday to the tune of Rs 2,678 crore.
The interim dividend paid by the six oil PSUs mounted to around 82 per cent of the total dividend paid by the these companies in the last financial year. Oil companies paid Rs 3,206 crore as dividend in the previous fiscal (2001-02).
ONGC paid the maximum with an amount of Rs 2,038.88 crore followed by IOC’s Rs 319.36 crore. GAIL paid Rs 170.85 crore and Oil India Limited paid Rs 84 crore. The two oil PSUs up for disinvestment, HPCL and BPCL, paid Rs 34.61 crore and Rs 39.72 crore respectively.
The practice of using the oil PSUs to bridge deficits is, however, nothing new. Before the last Budget, former Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha had also resorted to sudden hike in the duties on petro products which were subsequently absorbed by the oil companies as the government did not want to pass on the hike to the consumers.
However, senior officials in the petroleum ministry said that the move by the government would not affect the oil PSUs significantly.
