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Ministry seeks guidance over divestment

Confronted with a virtual halt in the divestment process in the aftermath of the controversy over privatisation of public sector oil companies -Hindustan Petroleum Corporation and Bharat Petroleum Corporation - the divestment ministry said on Tuesday that it had moved "appropriate forums" for guidance to bring the divestment process back on the rail.

"Divestment process has slowed down very much after the 3-month deferment of a decision on HPCL and BPCL. There is an increase in the opposition to the divestment process. Cooperation from administrative ministries, bureaucrats and PSU officials is far less now," divestment secretary Pradeep Baijal said.

Asked about the next step, Baijal said, "we have referred issues relating to various PSUs to appropriate forums for guidance."

Baijal said that Nalco's divestment process had come to a virtual halt due to the intervention of the state government and opposition from the Mines Minister Uma Bharati.

The privatisation of the National Fertilisers was being delayed with Fertiliser Minister S S Dhindsa linking the issue with long-term fertiliser policy, he said, adding that this was referred to the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs.

Baijal pointed out that the Group of Ministers had already made its recommendations on the long-term fertiliser policy and now the policy issue was before the Cabinet for consideration.

Likewise, some issues raised by heavy industry ministry had delayed the divestment of PSUs under its administrative control, he added.

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