Buying jewel in the crown: BPCL a revenue churner, not a drain on finances

Unlike Air India, the winning bidder for BPCL can easily bank on this revenue churner to recover the cost of acquisition

The crunch in tax revenues as a result of the pandemic has made privatisation an imperative rather than just a strategy for the Narendra Modi government. At the forefront of this move is Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) and Air India. Unlike the latter, the oil refining and marketing major is a revenue churner for the government rather than a drain on its finances. Nonetheless, the Union finance ministry’s silence around the submission of expressions of interest (EoIs) for BPCL casts doubts on whether the interested parties are good enough for handing over a public jewel.

Even a week after the