Why India should ensure its privatisation programme is transparent and fair

NDA government recently approved the selling of the entire stake in BPCL, Shipping Corp. of India Ltd. It also approved selling a controlling 30.8% shareholding in Container Corp. of India Ltd

When it comes to shrinking the state’s role in production, the priorities of the Bharatiya Janata Party government that’s ruled India since 2014 are very different from those of its predecessor, which left power a decade earlier. And that’s something that has annoyed investors no end.
 

Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the BJP prime minister between 1998 and 2004, gave a colleague free rein to kick-start a Margaret Thatcher-style privatization drive, something that hadn’t been attempted in India. The government let go of what it could — hotels, aluminium and zinc firms, a bakery chain — amid strong opposition from unions and