Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has asked the Heavy Industries and Coal Ministries to prepare a viable plan for BHEL and Coal India to mobilise revenues. These options include disinvestment, buyback and dividend payments.

“BHEL and Coal India have been asked to come back with various options,” Finance Minister P. Chidambaram told reporters after a high-level meeting chaired by the Prime Minister on disinvestment. The Heavy Industries and Coal Ministries will work out the best option for raising proceeds as an alternative to disinvestment.

This proposal comes at a time when the Finance Minister has made it clear that the Government will not breach the 4.8 per cent target of fiscal deficit.

However, another senior Minister said that the meeting did not arrive at a decision on disinvestment in these two companies. “It was just a review meeting,” he added.

In 2011, the Cabinet decided to offload 5 per cent stake in BHEL, but since the market situation was not conducive the Government was forced to defer its plan.

The Government had proposed to sell 10 per cent of its stake in Coal India. But protests from trade unions forced the Government to scale it down to 5 per cent. The Cabinet is yet to take a call on this proposal.

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