Study favours independent selloff panels for state PSUs

NEW DELHI: State governments should set up independent disinvestment commissions through a legislative process to take over the disinvestment of state-owned public sector enterprises, a study group of the Planning Commission has recommended in an unreleased report.
The report also recommended that the legislation should specify the enterprises which could be privatised, the method of valuations to be adopted, an enterprise-specific calendar for disinvestment and the method for reporting to the state legislature.
It added that the proposed commission may comprise economists, engineers, lawyers, accountants, public enterprises managers and labour experts.
The enterprise that should be disinvested or retained by the government should be decided by a matrix approach for their relevance as per three parameter: public purpose, profitability and mobilisation. Only those that are high on all three parameters should be retained by the state government.