Congress Chief Ministers may disinvest in their PSUs in fits and starts as their central leadership can’t make up its muddled mind on reforms—witness its smug celebration of yesterday’s Supreme Court order. But for the Narendra Modi government in Gujarat, there’s no such ambiguity: it announced today the setting up of a panel, headed by the Chief Minister, to work out disinvestment in 54 PSUs.Declaring this ambitious disinvestment programme after a Cabinet meeting today, government spokesman I K Jadeja said that the state would avail of financial assistance from the Centre to see the programme through.The committee will be guided by a panel of independent experts and the Finance Department will be the nodal agency for implementing the programme.The government has already wound up loss-making PSUs like the Gujarat State Construction Corporation, Gujarat Dairy Development Corporation, Gujarat Film Development Corporation, and Gujarat Small Industries Corporation. Some others had been merged. The bigger PSUs that continue to operate despite losses running into hundreds of crores are GIIC, GSFC, Gujarat State Fertilizer Company, GTDC and GEDC.And among the major profit-making PSUs are Gujarat Maritime Board, Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation, Gujarat Mineral Development Corporation, Gujarat Narmada Fertilizer Company, Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation, and Gujarat Alkalies & Chemicals Ltd.Evaluation of PSUs for disinvestment will be on the lines followed by the Centre. The Finance Department will create a technical secretariat, which will submit recommendations to the committee for final clearance.Implementation of the programme will be transparent, and PSUs created by legislation will be disinvested only after approval by the legislature, Jadeja said.
