The Financial Express (Delhi Edition)
Govt won’t cut its stake in power PSUs below 51%
New Delhi, June 19: Supporting the finance ministry's disinvestment plan for public sector undertakings, Union minister Piyush Goyal has said his ministry will not reduce the government's stake in power sector PSUs below 51%.
“Finance minister can do whatever (as much disinvestment) he wants to do. We will support him. But we will not go for (reducing government stake) below 51%. That is what we had announced for CoaI India and our other PSUs,” power, coal, new and renewable energy minister Goyal said.
Elaborating further, he said: “Management and control of the PSUs should remain with the government. Last year, divestment in PFC and REC was done. If they want then we are ready for another round.”
The government has set a disinvestment target of R56,500 crore for the fiscal. Of this, R36,000 crore is to come from minority stake sale in PSUs and R20,500 crore from strategic sale.
The government has already kick-started the disinvestment programme for the current fiscal with 11.36% stake sale in NHPC, which fetched R2,700 crore. It has lined up as many as 15 PSUs including Coal India, NMDC, MOIL, MMTC, National Fertilisers, NALCO and Bharat Electronics for divestment in 2016-17.
Recently, the Niti Aayog submitted two separate lists for dealing with sick units and those PSUs where strategic sale is possible. Under strategic sale, the government reduces stake to 49% or below. In common parlance, it is known as privatisation.
During 2015-16, the government had managed to notch up R25,312 crore through disinvestment, less than half the target of R69,500 crore.
It had raised around R24,500 crore in 2014-15 by selling stake in companies, about R16,000 crore in 201314 and R23,960 crore in 201213. It had raised around R14,000 crore in 2011-12 and over R 22,100 cr ore in 2010-11.
Asked about the impact of increase in coal prices by Coal India, Goyal said: “We are trying to rationalise it. We are not increasing the price of coal. When there will be drastic reduction in price of certain grade of coal (high calorific value) then there will be some increase in some other grades.”
He said this will lead to increase in use of higher calorific value coal and reduce quantities to generate same amount of power. “You need to blend the high calorific value coal as its prices have come down. You will require less quantity of coal and save freight. If I will not rationalise coal prices then there will be more imports, which would not be in nation's interest,” Goyal said.