Steel Minister Ram Vilas Paswan on Thursday ruled out any divestment in the companies under the ministry and said the department had not received any letter from the finance ministry over the issue.
Cabinet set to approve broadened framework this week; market route to be pursued as well.
The government is keen to divest stake in PSU firms .
The divestment department has lined up a host of companies.
Other companies which are on the block include NMDC, NALCO and IOC.
In the wake of renewed threats from the unions to stall the proposed public offering of shares, the government is reworking its strategy to go ahead with the divestment of National Aluminium Company.\n\n\n\n
Kailash Gahlot was divested of the Law and Justice portfolio in the Aam Aadmi Party government on Friday, a day after Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena recalled files related to judicial infrastructure and administration in New Delhi as they remained pending with him for months, officials said.
The finance ministry is in favour of extending the August deadline for public sector banks (PSBs) as well as insurance companies to increase their minimum public shareholding (MPS) to the mandated 25 per cent, said a senior government official. "The election results will determine the course of action. "Most likely, those who did not receive an extension to meet the minimum shareholding norm will be granted one," the senior government official said.
BJP leader Anil Vij on Tuesday skipped Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini's swearing-in ceremony where, according to the outgoing CM M L Khattar, he would also have been inducted in the cabinet.
The divestment target remaining unchanged, from the 2019-20 interim Budget, this year means the Centre will now have to depend on non-tax revenue sources like dividends from the RBI, PSBs and PSUs, as there are real concerns of a tax revenue shortfall. The fiscal deficit target of 3.4% of GDP for 2019-20 is likely to be retained as well.
S S Meenakshisundram on Wednesday took charge as secretary in the ministry of divestment.\n\n
Balmer Lawrie & Company, whose 61.97 per cent stake is slated to be divested by the Centre, is unlikely to be sold off during the current fiscal.
Earlier this year, the government raised around Rs 1,000-crore by selling its stake in Satluj Jal Vidyut Nigam.
The divestment of Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL) may hit a fuel price hurdle, according to officials dealing with the matter. They pointed out that the inconspicuous administered price regime could hamper the prospects for potential buyers of BPCL. A senior oil ministry official said public-sector oil-marketing companies (OMCs) take a hit when they sell petrol, diesel, and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), three of the most popular petroleum products in the country.
Government is expected to rely more on divestment proceeds to keep the fiscal deficit in check
The portfolios were cleared by Congress president Rahul Gandhi as the exercise had turned out to be tricky for the party state leaders.
SAIL on Friday said the finance ministry has given its in-principle approval for 20 per cent disinvestment of the steel giant.
The IPL uses this system for players' auction.
Kharge will take care of IT & BT along with existing portfolio, while Large & Medium Industries Minister M B Patil has been given the additional charge of Infrastructure Development.
Two days after Anil Vij denied having information about any intelligence input on a possible build-up of tension in Nuh, the Haryana Home Minister on Sunday said Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar can update on the issue stressing that he has 'all the information'.
In a major bureaucratic reshuffle, the government on Monday appointed Dhirender Singh as the new divestment secretary and K K Jaiswal as the new IT secretary.
The government cleared the proposal despite opposition from the petroleum ministry, which says this is not the right time for divestment as the sector is moving from trade parity to export parity pricing.
Coal ministry officials along with senior officials from Coal India and department of disinvestment would meet with capital market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India this month to take forward the process of listing the public sector unit.
Out of nearly 30 public sector undertakings and assets under 'strategic sale' plan, only the ONGC-HPCL plan has been completed
The previous highest divestment proceeds for the first half of a year was around Rs 21,000 crore in 2016-17.
The company has already received the coal ministry's nod to reduce the face value of its shares to Rs 10 from Rs 1,000 at present.
The strategic sale of government and state-owned Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) of India stakes in IDBI Bank might encounter procedural delays, potentially pushing the timeline for expected financial bids to the third quarter of the current financial year (2023-24, or FY24), according to sources familiar with the development. Financial bids constitute the second significant step in the divestment process, following expressions of interest (EoIs) from potential bidders. In this phase, bidders are required to quote transactional fee as a percentage of the divestment proceeds, which are then added to the government's kitty after completion of the transaction.
Going by the experience of the previous years -- when the actual proceeds from stake sale were much lower than the targets -- the government's disinvestment target for 2014-15 appears too ambitious.
The apex court agreed to hear on October 26 the petition by Verma challenging the government's decision. He has said in the petition that the CBI should be kept independent of the Department of Personnel and Training, which has jurisdiction over the probe agency, since it seriously hinders the CBI's independent functioning.
'I think some of us, like Mukesh Ambani, myself and those of us who head industrial units, ought to really focus on what we can really do to make the world a safer place, maybe 50 or 100 years from now.' 'For instance, how can we deal with climate change and global warming, right now?' 'The effects of it may not be felt now; in fact, we may pay a price for it today, but it will help the generations to follow.'
The government is understood to have rejected J P Morgan Securities India's plea to waive the condition of mandatory divestment of 25 per cent equity.
The government has already mopped up more than Rs 17,000 crore (Rs 170 billion) through divestment in the current financial year and is on course to achieve the Rs 40,000 crore (Rs 400 billion) target by fiscal year-end.
Expects to raise Rs 9,300 crore from Indian Oil share sale on Monday
Taking forward the drive to sell stake in state-owned firms, the Finance Ministry has asked the Ministry of Steel to divest about 10 per cent of its stake in RINL within next two years and list the firm on bourses or else the PSU's status of Navratna will be withdrawn.
The BSNL board had last year approved a plan under which the government would divest 10 per cent of its shares to the public. But opposition from the unions backed by the Left parties -- which supported the United Progressive Alliance in the last Parliament -- had stalled the process. That opposition has abated, now that the Left is no longer a factor in the current ruling alliance.
The government on Monday budgeted Rs 1.75 lakh crore from stake sale in public sector companies and financial institutions, including 2 PSU banks and one general insurance company, in the next fiscal year beginning April 1. The amount is lower than the record Rs 2.10 lakh crore which was budgeted to be raised from CPSE disinvestment in the current fiscal year. However, the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the government's CPSE stake sale programme, and the target has been lowered to Rs 32,000 crore in the Revised Estimates.
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