New Delhi: The government has combined the Department of Public Business Body (DPE) with the Ministry of Finance to provide better control of state-owned companies and facilitate ambitious privatization programs.
The Ministry of Finance will now have six departments while DPE’s Hereto Parent Ministry, the ministry of heavy industry and public companies will now be called a heavy industry ministry.
Previously, the Ministry of Disinvestment – made under the Government Atal Bihari Vajpayee – combined with the Ministry of Finance and is now the department below.
Also, the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) was abolished and the foreign investment administration was given to the Ministry of Finance (Finmin).
The DPE shift to the Ministry of Finance will assist in efficient monitoring of capital expenditure, monetization of the financial assets and health of the Public Sector Company (Cpses).
“The Ministry of Finance (Vitta Mantalaya), after the Sub-Heading (V) of the Financial Services Department (Vittya Swayen Vibhag), after sub-heading must be included, namely: – (vi) Public Business Department (Lok Udyam Vibhag)” according to the notice of the Cabinet Secretariat On July 6, 2021.
Rejig came before the cabinet expansion scheduled later on.
Gazette notifications issued said these rules can be called the Government of India (business allocation) three hundred sixty rules of the first amendment, 2021.
“They will begin to apply at once,” said the notice.
At present, the Ministry of Finance has five departments – economic affairs, income, expenses, investment and management of public assets and financial services.
With its addition, this will be the sixth department under the Ministry of Finance.
Providing detailed functions carried out by the DPE, notifications say coordination of general policy issues that affect all public sector companies (PSes), evaluation and monitoring of performance performance, including memorandum understanding of mechanisms, project reviews and cpses expenditure.
In addition, the DPE frame measures aim to improve the performance of CPSes and other capacity building initiatives from PSSES, provide advice related to the resurrection, restructuring or closing of PSes including mechanisms, counseling, training and rehabilitation of employees in the voluntary pension scheme and categorization of CPSES including Status ‘Ratna’ negotiates, among others.
The ministry of heavy industry will continue to be the administrative ministry related, especially with the capital goods sector.
As many as 44 CPses include Maruti Udyog Limited, Bhel, Cement Corporation, Indian Scooters, HMT and various other subsidiaries will be under the Ministry of Heavy Industries.
Many companies under the Ministry of Sick and are ready to be sold under the government disinvestment program.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in his budget 2021-22 has announced that the revised mechanism for the closure of PSUS PSUS’s fast tracking will be done and the incentive package will be developed to provide incentives in the state of the state PSU.
To monetize the land owned by CPSes, special purpose vehicles (SPV) will be developed.
He also announced a major privatization agenda, including the privatization of two public sector banks and one general insurance company to collect Rs 1.75 lakh crore from peg sales in public sector companies and financial institutions for 2021-22.
As part of the divestment strategy for the financial sector, the government has decided to go for early Mega (IPO) public offering Indian life insurance (LIC) and residual peg sales at the IDBI Bank starting April.
In addition, strategic sales of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL), shipping Corp, Container Corporation, Neelachal Ispat Nigam Ltd, Pawan Hans, Air India, among others, will be completed at 2021-22.
In September 2020, the government has provided that of the 34 PSUs approved for disinvestment so far, transactions are completed for eight.
Transactions for four PSU are stopped because they are recommended for closure.
Two of them were detained because of litigation, while transactions for 20 PSU were in process.