The Big Picture - Disinvestment for Development

The government will reinitiate the process of divesting its stake in national carrier Air India, even as it increased its disinvestment target in the Union Budget 2019-20 presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday. The target for disinvestment receipts has increased to Rs 1.05 trillion for FY20, from Rs 90,000 crore in the interim Budget presented in February. Significantly, the finance minister said that the government’s stake in non-financial public sector units can go below the majority stake of 51 per cent. Instead of holding a direct stake of 51 per cent in PSUs, “government-controlled institutions” can chip in the remaining sum which the government will look to divest. This move will enable the government to retain control over such firms. The Finance Minister reiterated that the government will make sure that its control is not diluted after lowering its stake in public sector undertakings (PSUs) to below 51 per cent. The government will also continue with the strategic divestment of select Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs). On this edition of the big picture we analyse the government’s disinvestment target.



Guests - R. Gopalan, Former Secretary, Financial Services, Ministry of Finance,
Dr. P. Pullarao, Economist,
Sushil Chandra Tripathi, Former Principal Secretary, Uttar Pradesh,

Anchor - Frank Rausan Pereira