NEW DELHI: The Finance Ministry has decided to speed up the divestment process from this month end, starting with fresh bids for Concor and Shipping Corporation of India. Plans for both strategic and non-strategic divestment were put on hold in the wake of the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic and amid volatile stock markets.“Recovery is happening and we expect things to improve with the upcoming festive season. So the process of divestment will be restarted in an aggressive way.
We are expecting to start with Concor by the first week of November, followed by SCI,” a senior official from the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) said. The official added that the Ministry of Railways is in the advanced stage of framing a new land licensing fee policy and even out all other deadlocks which had halted the divestment process.
“The Ministry of Railways hinted that by October third week all clearances will come. Post that the deck will be cleared for Concor, “ said the official.The Finance Ministry had set a divestment target of Rs 2.10 lakh crore for this fiscal year, which includes the sale of Air India, IPO of Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), stake sale in IDBI Bank, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL), Container Corporation of India Ltd (Concor) and Shipping Corporation of India Ltd (SCI). However, none of these have been able to take off so far. The Air India stake sale is stuck over debt, and experts claim LIC IPO might not
happen this year.
Besides, the government has already extended BPCL stake sale for the fifth time this year, following poor market condition. So far, the government had been able to achieve only `16,000 crore from divestment proceeds. Last month, DEA Secretary Tarun Bajaj, while announcing the borrowing calendar, had admitted that the government may not be able to achieve its divestment target and added that it is reworking the divestment target.