Centre: Plans afoot for HAL disinvestment

The government on Friday indicated the process of divesting its stake in Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) was underway.

Minister of state for defence, M M Pallam Raju, said, “The will of the government for the disinvestment is there. It is going through the procedures.” The government had been planning to divest 10 per cent stake in the defence public sector undertaking.

Raju also said the Indian Air Force (IAF) was dissatisfied with HAL for not sticking to the delivery schedule.

He added sometimes, the company was not able to meet the expectations of the IAF because it was handling “so many programmes”. Hence, the multiplicity of programmes was to be blamed, not a lack of competence or facilities, he said.

“It (HAL) may not be able to complete the production on time,” he said. “The delay has not been entirely to the satisfaction of the Air Force.

“It’s more a question of project management. The need of the hour is greater project management.”

Sometimes, “small decisions”, which could be taken by HAL, were referred to the ministry, he added.