Centre not backtracking on efforts to privatise BPCL, Air India

The spadework started late last year and 2020 was supposed to be the landmark year in India’s history of privatisation with at least three top PSUs - BPCL, Air India and Shipping Corporation of India up for sale. Though the outbreak of the pandemic pushed the timelines into the next fiscal, the Centre is firm on not going back on its disinvestment plans with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on more than one occasion emphatically stating that the Centre will continue to push for stake sales. Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, whose ministry is the nodal ministry for BPCL, went to the extent of saying, “the government has no business to be in the business.” In February, the FM set a record disinvestment target of Rs 2.10 lakh cr for the fiscal starting April but Rs 12,380 cr from minority stake sales in four public sector companies is all that has been garnered so far.