The Hindu : More heat than light over disinvestment

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Friday, May 09, 2003

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More heat than light over disinvestment

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI May 8. The disinvestment debate produced more heat than light today in the Lok Sabha as it was marred by a squabble between the Disinvestment Minister, Arun Shourie, and the AIADMK member, P.H. Pandian, who was in the Speaker's Chair. The issue was the need for parliamentary sanction to privatise the public sector oil companies, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation and Bharat Petroleum Corporation.

Mr. Pandian asked Mr. Shourie whether such sanction was not needed for selling public sector companies. The Minister said that such sanction had not been sought when equity in these two companies had been diluted in 1991.

Mr. Pandian said that since Parliamentary approval was needed for government spending, its authority could not be ruled out in the disinvestment of PSUs as well. Shourie replied that if he wanted to debate then it should be from the benches.

The tiff may have continued with the Opposition members supporting Mr. Pandian but for the intervention of Kirit Somaiya, who pointed out that the Minister would give detailed responses to members' concerns in his reply to the debate.

The two-hour long discussion under Rule 193 which will be continued tomorrow put Mr. Shourie on the mat once again over disinvestment of the two oil companies with even the NDA partner, Shiv Sena, expressing its staunch opposition to privatisation of the oil sector. Prakash Paranjape of the Sena felt that since foreign and private sector companies had been allowed to invest in the oil sector there was no need to sell off the public sector companies which could provide a measure of competition.

Ramji Lal Suman of the Samajwadi Party created a stir when he urged Mr. Shourie, who was talking to the Minister of State for Labour, Vijay Goel, to pay heed to his comments. His remark on Mr. Goel was expunged though the treasury benches insisted on an apology.

Earlier, Somnath Chatterjee of the CPI(M) described HPCL-BPCL disinvestment as an act of "monumental perfidy'' as he spoke at length about the need to avert this process. He pointed out that the two companies had a higher turnover combined than the nine private sector companies in the oil sector currently.

They had also contributed as much as over Rs. 21,000 crores in taxes as against about Rs. 6,100 crores by the private companies. In such a scenario, he strongly opposed their privatisation.

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