A sell-off by another name perhaps would taste less bitter? The Centre has kicked off its “asset monetisation” of the struggling government-owned telecom giants BSNL and MTNL by calling for bids for its properties.
The move sets in motion the Modi government's ambitious National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP), which was announced with fanfare by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman back in August.
“Non-core asset monetisation commences with the first set of six properties of BSNL/MTNL bid out,” Tuhin Kanta Pandey, secretary of the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) announced Saturday noon. DIPAM is the nodal government agency for privatisation and sell-off of public sector units (PSU).
E-tenders for application have been uploaded for bidders on the MSTC portal. DIPAM states: “The objective of the asset monetisation programme is to unlock the value of investment made in public assets which have not yielded appropriate or potential returns so far (and) create hitherto unexplored sources of income for the company and its shareholders.”
While the present move is only more on the lines of leasing (asset monetisation is the term the government is couching it on) and not a direct divestment or sell-off, it gives the clearest indication yet on the line of thinking in the higher echelons of the government for the beleaguered white elephants.
Ironically, till the announcement came, rumours were swirling over the weekend that the government would soon come up with a Rs 1.3 lakh crore revival package for MTNL.
Earlier, the government had mulled merging the two loss-making telecom service providers. But that was later put off citing financial reasons.
After the successful privatisation of Air India to Tatas, the authorities are gung-ho about kicking the process into high gear for others on the block. The present list includes Bharat Petroleum, Shipping Corporation of India and Pawan Hans, among others.
Besides those sell-offs, there is also the much-hyped minority sale of government stake in Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) in the new year, which is slated to be the biggest IPO India has ever seen.
The national monetisation pipeline intends to raise Rs 6 lakh crore through “unlocking optimal value” of public sector assets through asset monetisation. The assets are divided into core and non-core assets—core assets including highways, oil and gas pipelines and power projects while non-core encompasses land, office space, factories and properties belonging to the likes of railways and defence.
The six BSNL and MTNL properties that are up for bidding will come under the non-core category.
