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Privatisation plans moving forward: Shourie

India's privatisation of state enterprises is moving ahead briskly, with the government currently examining 25 proposals, Divestment Minister Arun Shourie said on Monday.

"In India in the last 10 months, we have completed 18 transactions. Even as we talk now, work is going on in about 25 other companies, some of which we hope to conclude within a month," Shourie told a news conference.

Fresh life was breathed into India's painfully slow privatisation programme in the fiscal year to March 2002, when the government managed to sell several firms, notably telecoms giant Videsh Sanchar Nigam, Hindustan Zinc and computer hardware and maintenance firm CMC.

This year it has listed strategic sales of refiners Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum, petrochemicals firm IPCL, Shipping Corporation of India, carmaker Maruti and National Aluminium Company as some of its big ticket sell-offs.

Shourie, who is in Singapore as part of delegation of ministers and business leaders led by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, said Indian workers were experiencing the benefits of privatisation, like higher wages.

He said the privatisation moves had also sparked life into the stock market.

"In fact, it's been led by government company stocks, which were just dead stocks for a long time," he said.

"Many provincial governments are now on the verge of making their own privatisations, including those which opposed privatisation last year," Shourie said.

India, which has repeatedly failed to meet its privatisation targets in the past, plans to raise Rs 120 billion.

Since 1991-92, the government has managed to raise just Rs 267.38 billion out of a targeted Rs 660 billion.

Shourie also said there was no move to revive a proposal to privatise Air-India, in which Asia's largest listed airline, Singapore Airlines, was at one time interested to buy a stake along with India's Tata Group.

"From our side, we do not propose to revive this proposal, in the next few months," he said.

The minister added the government was planning "major investments" in its airlines to make them more competitive.

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