Govt sells GSEC stake to Adanis

Entire share of 56.6% offloaded for Rs 4.50 crore

In the first case where the state government has offloaded its entire stake in a state-owned enterprise, Gujarat has sold its 56.6 per cent share in the Gujarat State Export Corporation Ltd (GSEC) to Adani Exports Ltd for Rs 4.50 crore. The remaining stake is with the public.

The state government has also called back all the directors appointed by it.

The Ahmedabad-based Adani Exports is promoted by the Adani Group. The government sold its entire stake in GSEC to Adani Exports and informally gave management control to the company in March this year.

The decision was given final clearance by the government on Wednesday. Rajesh Shah has been appointed as the new managing director of the corporation, which will retain its name.

"Adani Exports is managing the corporation since March this year. The profitability of the corporation has gone up by over 40 per cent in the last four months. The corporation has the custody of the air cargo complex at the Ahmedabad airport. Soon after we acquired the corporation, the revenue from air cargo complex has gone up to Rs one lakh a day from Rs 70,000 a day earlier," Sameer Mankad, a director of the GSEC, said.

He said, "At present, we are trying to improve the bottomline of the company by offering customer-friendly services. We are also planning to start trading activity soon. Our focus is to improve the service level of the corporation by introducing computerised systems. We aim to help the small and medium enterprises for promoting export and import business," said Mankad.

Anil Patel, minister of state for industries, on Wednesday said, "We have a declared policy on disinvestment on the basis of certain guidelines from the Centre and we will proceed with this policy. The government has created an expert committee to look into the pros and cons of disinvestment of other such corporations in future."

Finance minister Vajubhai Vala said, "We will sell government's stake in some more entities in a phased manner as there is no point in holding back huge government stakes in loss-making PSUs."

GSEC has appointed an assistant drug controller at the air cargo complex itself to attract more pharmaceutical companies to use the Ahmedabad airport.

It has also co-ordinated with Bank of Baroda to set up an extension counter at the complex to facilitate payment of customs duties and other charges. GSEC expects a sizeable increase in trade of fruits, vegetables, flowers and pharmaceuticals with the setting up of the new facilities.

The capacity of the cold storage facility of the air cargo complex has also been increased to 15 tonne.

GSEC handled import and export cargo worth over Rs 5,500 crore in the fiscal year.