
The government called off the privatisation process of Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL) few days back after two of the three companies that had shown interest in acquiring the public sector undertaking (PSU) withdrew their bids. Giving an update on the re-initiation of BPCL privatisation, Tuhin Kanta Pandey, Secretary, Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM), has said that in next 6 months things would be clearer about the way forward with the BPCL case.
“As far as BPCL privatisation is concerned we have to wait for a while, we have to review the situation. I would say in next 6 months things would be clearer to us that how we should move forward in BPCL’s case,” said Pandey.
According to Pandey, the current market condition was not favorable that is why the bidders walked out even though initially they came because the whole sector was moving so fast in terms of transition and there was also uncertainty around it.
“Now people are also realising that there has been so much of an underinvestment in oil sector over the period of time. I don’t know what will happen in the future,” he added.
The government had planned to sell its entire 52.98 per cent stake in BPCL through the strategic disinvestment. The government invited expressions of interest from bidders in March 2020 from selling BPCL and by November 2020 at least three bids had come in. Also, the government has set the disinvestment target of Rs 65,000 crore for FY23, which is far less than the target of Rs 1.75 lakh crore in FY22. Many experts believe that even the target of Rs 65,000 crore is ambitious. According to the DIPAM secretary, so far, the government has received Rs. 24,046.40 crore, that includes proceeds of Rs 20,560 crore from the LIC IPO.
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