New Delhi: Forget general investors, public sector undertakings (PSUs) are finding it hard to convince even their own employees to take part in the disinvestment programme, and none of them was able to sell the entire quota reserved for their workforce in public offers since the last fiscal, reports PTI.
Besides, some PSUs that have remote locations are unable to communicate the public offer message to their employees and face various difficulties like opening demat accounts.
"What we have found in the seven, eight instances is that whatever was reserved for employees has not been fully subscribed. The best subscription we had was of Rural Electrification Corporation (REC), which went up to 75%. And in some companies it has been as low as 20%-25%," disinvestment secretary Sumit Bose today said today at a SCOPE seminar.
He further said that in the recent follow-on public offer of Engineers India (EIL), only around 60% of the employee quota got subscribed.
The government had raised Rs25,000 crore through stake sale in Oil India, NMDC, REC and NTPC during 2009-10, while it aims to raise Rs40,000 crore through disinvestment this fiscal.
So far, in the current fiscal, divestment in the Satluj Jal Vidyut Nigam (SJVNL) has fetched the exchequer over Rs1,000 crore and it managed to mop up around another Rs1,000 crore by selling stake in Engineers India.
In all these public issues, the government has reserved certain percentage for its employees.
Mr Bose cited some difficulties that have kept employees from participating in the government's disinvestment programme.
"REC is a very urban type of corporation with limited number of employees. That is its strength and many of them are in headquarters. On the other hand, let us look at NMDC.
Spread all over in some of the remotest corners of the country, much of it is inaccessible (to) lot of grades of employees," he said.
Mr Bose added, "To carry the message that these are stocks of your company, you can become owner of the company, is that much more challenging as are all other requirements (like) opening demat accounts."
On the forthcoming IPO of Coal India, which filed draft prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) yesterday, Mr Bose said, "You would have been reading in the paper that CIL which has filed draft prospectus yesterday has been making a lot of efforts to open demat accounts across its eight subsidiaries. It is a challenging task.
Inside story of the National Stock Exchange’s amazing success, leading to hubris, regulatory capture and algo scam
Fiercely independent and pro-consumer information on personal finance.
1-year online access to the magazine articles published during the subscription period.
Access is given for all articles published during the week (starting Monday) your subscription starts. For example, if you subscribe on Wednesday, you will have access to articles uploaded from Monday of that week.
This means access to other articles (outside the subscription period) are not included.
Articles outside the subscription period can be bought separately for a small price per article.
Fiercely independent and pro-consumer information on personal finance.
30-day online access to the magazine articles published during the subscription period.
Access is given for all articles published during the week (starting Monday) your subscription starts. For example, if you subscribe on Wednesday, you will have access to articles uploaded from Monday of that week.
This means access to other articles (outside the subscription period) are not included.
Articles outside the subscription period can be bought separately for a small price per article.
Fiercely independent and pro-consumer information on personal finance.
Complete access to Moneylife archives since inception ( till the date of your subscription )
