What will disinvestment in FY21 be like?

New Delhi: The current financial year may have seen the government trimming its target, but disinvestment in FY21 will be anything but conservative, sources from DIPAM (Department of Investment and Public Asset Management) told PSU Watch on the condition of anonymity. For FY21, the government will be banking on BPCL sale and LIC IPO to raise the majority of its mammoth divestment target of Rs 2.1 lakh crore.

Disinvestment FY21: Few minority stake sales planned

Unlike this year, when the government has a number of minority stake sales via OFS (offer for sale) planned in the last leg of the current financial year, FY21 will see a small number of such disinvestment deals taking place. "There aren't many minority stake sales planned for FY21. There will be a few, but, majorly, the government will be relying on BPCL sale and LIC IPO to meet its target of Rs 2.1 lakh crore," said a source familiar with the matter.

'Govt has no business to be in business'

The source said that for the next four years, the government is going to proceed on the same idea which has been spelled out by various ministers on various platforms — that the government has no business to be in business. "There's a very clear shift in policy now. No major strategic disinvestments have happened under the previous regimes. The Narendra Modi government is the first government since late Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's Cabinet to have taken up strategic disinvestment at such a scale. And the idea is going to guide government decisions over the next four years, with Niti Aayog playing an advisory role," another source said. Strategic disinvestment could mean privatisation or the sale of government shares in a PSU to another PSU. In either of the case, it means that the government will let go of management control.

The backdrop

In November 2019, Anurag Singh Thakur, Union Minister of State for Finance & Corporate Affairs, had said in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha that a list of 28 Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs) including subsidiaries, Units and Joint Ventures have received an 'in-principle' approval from the government for strategic disinvestment with the sale of the majority stake of the Centre and transfer of management control.

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