PMO asks NITI Aayog CEO to chalk out detailed plan for one sick PSU

NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant

FOLLOWING a road map prepared by and submitted to the PMO last month by NITI Aayog on strategic sale or closure of some sick PSUs, the Prime Minister’s Office has asked NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant to identify one sick PSU. The man behind the Incredible India mission has been asked to come out with a detailed roadmap for its sell-off...
or eventual liquidation, before moving on to other such cases.
NITI Aayog, a think-tank for the government on policy matters, and provides policy-related inputs, had submitted two separate lists of sick and loss-making PSUs – one comprising those that can be closed down and the other of those that should be privatised.
Kant had earlier made the presentation on this road map before the PMO. Now he has been asked to identify one sick PSU that can be sold off or liquidated in the event of the sell-off exercise not fructifying, before moving on to other such cases, a daily quoting a senior government official reported.
Kant had earlier headed the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP). Kant has also been asked to chalk out a detailed plan for the sale or the eventual liquidation, which can be then taken to the Cabinet.
This will help the NDA government in fine tuning a comprehensive blueprint to sell loss-making PSUs or close down the entities that cannot be revived. Previous such attempts have not been very successful.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had in his Budget 2016-17 speech said the Aayog will identify PSUs for strategic sale and disinvestment.
“A new policy for management of government investment in public sector enterprises, including disinvestment and strategic sale, has been approved. We have to leverage the assets of CPSEs for generation of resources for investment in new projects,” Jaitley had said.
“We will encourage CPSEs to divest individual assets like land, manufacturing units etc to release their asset value for making investment in new projects. The NITI Aayog will identify the CPSEs for strategic sale.”
The government aims to collect Rs 56,500 crore through disinvestment in PSUs this fiscal, as per the Union budget for 2016-17.
Of the total budgeted proceeds, Rs 36,000 crore is estimated to come from minority stake sale in PSUs and the remaining Rs 20,500 crore from strategic sale in both profit and loss-making companies.
In 2015-16, the government was able to meet less than half of the disinvestment estimates at Rs 25,312 crore against the target of Rs 69,500 crore.
It had raised around Rs 24,500 crore in 2014-15 by selling stake in public companies, about Rs 16,000 crore in 2013-14 and Rs 23,960 crore in 2012-13. It had raised around Rs 14,000 crore in 2011-12 and over Rs 22,100 crore in 2010-11.