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CCD meeting may finalise CMC, HTL sell-off on Sep 27

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee will preside over the meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Divestment in New Delhi on Thursday to finalise the sell-off of CMC Ltd and Hindustan Teleprinter Ltd.

The meet also seeks to send a strong signal about the central government's resolve to push through divestment-related reforms, despite the US-Taliban face-off.

The CCD is likely to examine the financial bids received from the private sector firms for divestment of the information technology major CMC, and HTL, official sources said.

Divestment secretary Pradip Baijal had said last week that the government would finalise the divestment of the two companies this month.

Business houses like Tata Consultancy Services, Reliance Telecom and Wipro are in the race for the takeover of the government's majority stake in CMC.

In CMC, the government has decided to bring down its stake from 83 per cent to 26 per cent. With no cap on the foreign equity in the software sector, any foreign firm can make a bid for the computer giant.

The government had invited bids for CMC in February this year even before it appointed KPMG as global advisors for the sell-off.

However, with major airlines in the world facing the war-related cost burdens and shelving their investment plans, the divestment of Air-India is certain to be put on the backburner for the time being. Divestment secretary had admitted this last week.

With the Singapore Airlines withdrawing from the Tatas-led consortium and the Hindujas being disqualified on security grounds, the Tatas were the only bidders left in the race for the takeover of the national carrier.

Divestment Minister Arun Shourie had proposed that to speed up the divestment programme, public sector units, once cleared for the sell-off, should be brought under the control of the finance ministry. However, the move might find resistance from different administrative ministries.

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