After Air India, Neelachal Ispat Nigam Ltd to be second govt firm to be privatised: DIPAM Secty

Initially some privatisation took place between 2000-2004 and thereafter disinvestment moved slow. However, new PSE policy calls for either privatisation of non strategic sectors or completely closing them down, Pandey said addressing a special session organised by the Merchants' Chamber of Commerce & Industry.

He said the government had already done asset monetisation worth Rs 17,000 crore in the road sector  and targets Rs 88,000 crore worth of asset monetisation by end of the fiscal.

Monetisation worth Rs 50,000 crore would be done in the mining sector, he added. 

"Tremendous portion of MDO work has been done in the coal mining side. Not only new mining blocks but also in existing blocks. They are going with own machinery and capital investment. This model is also being tried," Pandey said.

On disinvestment, he said the government has so far done Rs 3.8 lakh crore worth of disinvestment. Going forward the new PSU policy is for privatisation. "Expression of interest for privatisation IDBI, NMDC, CONCOR, Ferro Scrap is likely to come soon," he said.

On the LIC IPO, Pandey said that 10 million demat accounts have been opened as the DRHP for it has already been filed.

Clearance  from the SEBI has been obtained. It is likely to be the largest IPO in the history of the Indian capital market.

"The valuation for it had been done, the capital structure has been changed. LIC's asset under management is worth Rs 40 trillion, which is 66 percent of the assets of the remaining insurance companies functioning in India. LIC is the world's tenth largest insurance company," Pandey said.

On Prime Minister's announcement of National Land Monetisation Corporation, Pandey said the idea is not only to build a land holding body but operate it like PMC( project management body) building facilities on the excess land available with the PSUs like MTNL and BSNL.