Selloff Shourie damns colleagues

The disinvestment programme is at the crossroads and the entire reform process is passing through a delicate phase, said disinvestment minister Arun Shourie. Shourie minced no words while hitting out at those opposing the disinvestment process.
"The difficulty is that in a fragile and fractured polity and legislature, squalls of this kind can make all the difference. The disinvestment programme has run into a spot, I don’t want to hide from that," Shourie told a gathering at the Indian Merchants Chambers.
He made scathing remarks on ministers and bureaucrats wanting to hold on to companies being administered by their respective ministries. Fertiliser minister Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa, whose ministry controls National Fertiliser and mines minister Uma Bharti, whose ministry is in charge of Nalco, were the latest to jump into the fray, Shourie said.
"The ministry of disinvestment prepared a calendar for disinvestment. Deputy PM L K Advani proposed that once the calendar is approved by the cabinet, the secretary in the respective administrative ministry is expected to be responsible for its execution. The committee meeting on Saturday is expected to look into the calendar for 15-20 companies," Shourie later told newspersons on the sidelines of the event.
He reiterated that strategic sales was the only way to carry out successful disinvestment programme.
"There is a bright idea that the public wealth should be shared with the public. There are recommendations for a public offer of PSUs prior to the disinvestment. However, that method has not succeeded. In the past, public offers have yielded very low returns. Offers to the public have devolved on financial institutions. This has created more problems in the market," he said.
Shourie also emphasised the need for extracting a control premia from those interested buying public sector companies.
"If a public offer is made, the government will never be able to extract a control premium. For example, the previous placement to Suzuki in 1992 valued Maruti at Rs 269 per share. This did not include any control premium despite giving up a majority holding in the company. We made Suzuki put Rs 400 crore at Rs 3,280 per share and extracted a control premium of Rs 1,400 crore without selling a single share," he added.