Since then it has managed to get rid of some assets including some troubled ones like Air India, listing LIC and starting the process of selling other assets.

What the poll says

Ahead of the 2023 Union Budget, ET Online conducted a survey of its readers to understand their perspective on the BJP government’s privatization campaign.
An overwhelming majority, just over 60% of respondents, approved the government’s move and said the privatization drive should continue. They seem to agree that the government should indeed be doing no business.

There were some who said divestments should stop. Almost 26% of respondents indicated that the ongoing course of privatization could very well lead to the creation of monopolies.

In recent years, opposition parties have protested that certain individuals or entities have consistently sacked the companies that the government has been selling, even if those entities had no experience running such companies.

Around 8% of respondents said they didn’t care about the divestment campaign as it had no direct or indirect impact on their lives. An even smaller number – just over 5% – said the initiative would not bear fruit as buyers were reluctant to take over state-owned companies for a number of reasons.

The score card
The Government raised some Rs 31,100 crore from divestments of key public sector companies in April-December against the budget target of Rs 65,000 crore for the full year. In the past four years, the government has fallen far short of the budget’s disinvestment target.

The sale of debt-ridden Air India to Tata Group last year was a highlight of the divestment program. But this fiscal year, the government was forced to scrap plans to privatize BPCL and SAIL’s Bhadrawati steel mill due to lack of buyer interest.

It was forced to complete the sale of Central Electronics Ltd as the successful bidder was disqualified for failing to disclose that there were pending legal cases. The sale of Pawan Hans was also frozen as a member of the winning consortium had an NCLT lawsuit against it.

More than half of the divestment proceeds generated to date have come from the Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) IPO. In May 2022, the government had raised Rs. 21,000 by selling a 3.5 per cent stake in the insurance giant for Rs. 949 per share.