Planning Commission pitches for aggressive disinvestment

New Delhi, Nov 4 (PTI) The Planning Commission of India
Wednesday pitched for "aggressive" disinvestment, and said the
proceeds from sale of government shares in public sector
undertakings should be utilised for new investment projects.

"First of all we should be aggressive and secondly it
(proceeds from disinvestment) should be used for new
investment," Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh
Ahluwalia told reporters at the Economic Editors' Conference
here.
The modalities for expediting disinvestment and
utilising the proceeds in new projects should be developed by
the Finance Ministry, he said when asked whether the receipts
should be used for bridging fiscal deficit which is expected
to soar to 6.8 per cent of the GDP during 2009-10.
Under the current dispensation, the proceeds of
disinvestment are parked in National Investment Fund (NIF) and
the funds are used for financing social sector schemes and
capital requirement of the PSUs. The NIF has a corpus of Rs
1,815 crore, mainly raised by offloading shares of the Power
Grid Corporation in the last fiscal.
The government had already offloaded the shares of the
Oil India Limited (OIL) and NHPC in the current fiscal, and
has unveiled plans to reduce its shareholding in NTPC, Sutluj
Jal Vidyut Nigam and Rural Electrification Corporation. MORE
PTI CS
DDC


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