Government not in a ‘hurry’ to sell everything: Sitharaman
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The minimum presence of existing public sector commercial enterprises in strategic sectors will be kept under government control at the holding company level. The rest of the enterprises in this sector will be considered for privatization or merger with another Public Sector Enterprise (PSE) or for closure.
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday said the government is not in a hurry to sell everything and will retain its presence in four strategic sectors, including telecom. The minimum presence of existing public sector commercial enterprises in strategic sectors will be kept under government control at the holding company level. The rest of the enterprises in this sector will be considered for privatization or merger with another Public Sector Enterprise (PSE) or for closure.
Addressing the Raisina Dialogue 2023 conference held here, Sitharaman said that government-owned professionally run companies will continue to operate in four broad strategic sectors in the country. Atomic Energy, Space & Defence, Transport & Telecom under PSE Policy; Power, petroleum, coal and other minerals and banking, insurance and financial services have been identified as four broad strategic sectors. He said, the government’s policy is not to rush to sell everything… nor does it mean that the government will start producing everything from needles to crops.
Where the government does not want to be present, it will not be there. But where there is a need to be present in view of strategic interests, it will be in areas like telecom. Explaining the importance of minimal government presence in these areas, the Finance Minister said, “There will be a government-owned telecom company and it will be professionally run.”
He said, “The institutions which are capable of operating on their own, have a different point. But if there is any potential in a very small company, we will try to merge them into a bigger entity so that they can run on their own.” Sitharaman had announced in the budget speech that the government would raise Rs 51,000 crore by selling stake in various government companies in the financial year 2023-24. This target is slightly higher than the current financial year ending March 31, 2023.
Disclaimer:IndiaTheNews has not edited this news. This news has been published from PTI-language feed.
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