'No referendum on sell-off'

NEW DELHI: Divestment Minister Arun Shourie told the Rajya Sabha that the Nalco sell-off will proceed as mandated by the Cabinet Committee on Disinvestment and that there was no question of holding a referendum on the proposed privatization.
Responding to supplementaries during the question hour, Mr Shourie said disinvestment of government holding in Nalco was being carried out in accordance with the policy of divesting all non-strategic PSUs, whether profit-making or loss incurring, to bring down government holding to 26%. Asked specifically by an Opposition member whether the government intended to carry out a referendum on national assets before divesting them, Mr Shourie said there was no such proposal.
Mr Shourie then pointed out that in Congress-ruled Punjab, the state government was disinvesting the profit-making Punjab Tractors.