Govt eyeing asset monetisation to make up for the disinvestment gap

After meeting the target for disinvestment in the previous two years, the government is stuck this time with sell-off of the government stake in public sector units yielding just little over Rs 18,000 crore so far against a whopping target of Rs 1.05 trillion for 2019-20.
 
Disinvestment in blue chip Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL) is in all surety not happening this year, as also Air India sale. As such, the government is eyeing asset monetisation to make up for less proceeds from disinvestment compared to the projections. The proceeds under this head assumes importance since tax collections are set to fall short of projections by over Rs 2 trillion. Even as the Modi government revived the idea of strategic disinvestment, shelved off after the UPA government replaced the Vajpayee government, not much happened on this front. Though the Modi government did project Rs 28,500 crore from disinvestment in its second Budget in its previous stint, nothing came from it.

Proceeds from strategic disinvestment came in in the next two years, but those were not real privatisation. Those included selling of the government stake in HPCL to ONGC that raked in over Rs 36,000 crore to the government.
 
On the other hand, strategic disinvestment included selling off modern foods, Balco, Hindustan Zinc among others, to private parties during the Vajpayee government.