COMMENTARY
INTERVIEWS
SPECIALS
CHAT
ARCHIVES

Divestment panel likely to quit en masse

Members of the Disinvestment Commission, including its chairman G V Ramakrishna, are likely to submit their resignations to the government on July 24.

Disclosing this to newsmen in Bangalore on Tuesday, Commission member D M Nanjundappa said, "Even if the others do not resign, I am firm in my decision. My last attendance would be on July 24."

He said he had taken the decision following the utter disregard shown by the BJP-led government in not restoring the powers of the Commission stripped in January. Although the government had been stating that it would consider restoring the powers, nothing had been done so far, he alleged.

Besides Nanjundappa, other members of the Commission are Dipankar Basu, former chairman of the State Bank of India, Rajendra Singh and Professor Suresh Tendulkar.

The commission was set up by the United Front government led by H D Deve Gowda in August 1996, but was not given statutory powers. It was asked to look into the functioning of 50 public sector units (out of the total 262 PSUs). However, the government later withdrew seven of them.

The Commission had completed its recommendations with regard to 41 of the PSUs and was scheduled to review Air-India and the Central Electronics Limited on July 24.

UNI