PSUs sale exercise fails to create any buzz

NEW DELHI: The government has entered the final stages for “strategic sale” of at least two public sector companies — Pawan Hans and Scooters India — but is finding it difficult to find buyers for several other ailing companies that it had put on the block. With the government deciding against selling land and other assets as part of its disinvestment exercise, even staterun companies are shy of buying several PSUs that are on offer. In fact, in case of EPIL, the government failed to convince construction company NBCC to “acquire” the PSU and is now going to open the field to private players as well, something that was not allowed when the company was put up for sale.To avoid any controversy, the government has decided to either transfer land to a surplus pool that will be used for development later or end the lease that state governments had offered. “This has resulted in lower interest,” admitted an official. At the same time, the government was not banking on large fund-raising from the sale of these companies as the idea was to reduce the burden on the exchequer as PSUs were seen to be unviable.NITI Aayog had identified over three dozen loss-making PSUs for sale but the government has been slow in implementing the plan as the bureaucracy wanted to devise a strategy that did not expose them to investigation later. With the strategy now in place, government is hoping to speed up the exercise. Sources said Pawan Hans and Scooters India could be ready for sell-off over next few weeks. But with elections due to be announced any day, it is unclear if the government, which revived the strategic sale programme after coming to power five years ago, will actually execute the transactions.

from Economic Times https://ift.tt/2tWAkJS