The Central Government is planning to sell leading airline Air India and oil giant Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) by March next year.
Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday said that the strategic sale of the two companies is an essential part of the government’s plan to meet its target of raising over Rs one lakh crore for the current financial year.
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“We are moving on both with the expectation that we can complete them this year. The ground realities will play out,” Sitharaman told the Times of India.
Sitharaman said that there is a ‘lot of interest’ among investors which is apparent in international road shows ahead of the sale of Air India.
The airline’s sale had to be dropped last year due to poor response from investors.
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The government is counting on proceeds from disinvestment -which includes the strategic sale and public offers-to bolster its revenues in a year when tax collections are under pressure.
The finance minister claimed that the government is taking every possible step to stop the economic slowdown and many sectors have been recovering from distress.
Meanwhile, Twitterati is having a field day slamming the Centre’s decision of selling Air India and BPCL with most of them claiming that the present government is responsible for the country witnessing a severe economic slowdown.
Some of them even went to claim that all the public sector units will be slowly privatized under the Modi government.