The process of divestment should be aimed at taking public sector undertakings to the stock market instead of finding a strategic partner, feels Ratan Tata, chairman of the Rs 80,000-crore (Rs 800 billion) Tata Group.
"The government's policy of finding a strategic partner is the wrong model," was Tata's view, which was diametrically opposite to that of former divestment minister Arun Shourie.
Vested interests curb reforms: Ratan Tata
"The model that should be pursued and the one that I suggested to Shourie when we were bidding for Air India was that instead of getting into that controversy (strategic partner) why don't you put more of it into the public market, into the stock market," he said.
Taking a cue from the Singaporean style of divestment, Tata said: "They put Singtel on the market, they put Singapore Airlines on the market and it became a publicly held company. It forces accountability on the manager."
While stating that the process must be allowed to find its own level, he, however, said that some constraints must be put so that no single block or no single group can acquire more than a certain percentage.
"So that you ensure that control is not taken away," he said.
Taking a dig at unions and political parties opposing divestment, he said: "Those public sector units, which people are sort of protecting, don't belong to unions, they don't belong to any one specific political group. They belong to all of us in the country," Tata said.
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