Divestment Panel Wants All Psus Within Its Ambit

Disinvestment Commission chairman G V Ramakrishna will shortly convey the decision to the government, sources said.

Since the Commission has been set up with a Cabinet mandate, any change in the terms of reference will technically require the latter's concurrence. The United Front government is, however, in favour of settling the matter internally rather than taking the issue back to the full Cabinet, the sources said.

In fact, the government had reduced the term of the Commission to three years in the gazette notification even as the Cabinet had agreed upon a five-year term.

The terms of reference of the Commission have been a matter of dispute between the government and the chairman. The notification issued by the government limits the Commission's powers to merely evaluating the PSUs referred to it by the core group