The CPI (M) on Monday urged the Centre not to make listing on stock exchanges a condition for Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs) to retain their Maharatna or Navaratna status. The party also said CPSEs should not be compelled to make a minimum disinvestment of 25 per cent.
The demands were put forward by Sitaram Yechury, CPI(M) Polit Bureau member and Rajya Sabha MP, in a letter to Nirmala Sitharaman, Minister of State for Finance. Mr. Yechury was responding to Ms. Sitharaman’s letter dated September 4, in which she said she had taken notice of his zero-hour submission against disinvestment in the Rajya Sabha on July 22, 2014.
Taking issue with Mr. Yechury, Ms. Sitharaman, setting out the NDA government’s disinvestment policy — a continuation of the UPA government’s policy — wrote that in all cases of disinvestment of CPSEs, the government would retain at least 51% equity and management control to ensure continuing inflow of dividends to the government even after a part of it was disinvested.
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Saying he still disagreed with Ms. Sitharaman’s explanation, Mr. Yechury stressed he never said all dividends stopped flowing from the CPSEs to the government, only that the latter was increasingly losing its dividend income as it incrementally off-loaded its shares in the CPSEs. Dividends, he said, are a recurring flow to the government. By forgoing a part of this for a one-time sales-proceeds did not reflect economic prudence.