The first seeds of economic liberalization was sown as early in late 1980's i.e. at the fag end of Rajiv Gandhi's government and was pushed with vigour by Dr. Manmohan Singh under Narasimha Rao's leadership. Thus, almost one and half decade has passed by but even now we have not successfully shed the excess fat that our Government is carrying, the burden of public sectors. You can not open up the market and still keep playing the role of a mere employer without bothering about effective functioning of the organization. The first ever complete disinvestment was formalized with the selling of Modern Food Industries.

Today, the private sector company which bought the Modern Food Industries has already broke even and is on the path to make profits. This clearly shows that we do not run our public sector companies in an effective way. Any half-hearted attempt with regard to disinvestment would not yield the desired results. We can not be reiterating the need of disinvestment on one hand and on the other hand talk about swadeshi. The term swadeshi has its meaning only if it generates funds to take care of health and hunger of our less fortunate brethren. As long as it does not meet this goal, there is no meaning in managing the dead elephants. When we decide to privatize our  manufacturing sector, in order to make them very competitive, we should not be lukewarm in implementation. Half baked food is dangerous than the uncooked food.

Let us recall what our Finance Minister said a few weeks back on this issue. He openly admitted that the Government "lost focus" on the disinvestment programme. However, Jaswant Singh asserted that there was no rethinking on the issue and the Government would go ahead with it. The government should not deviate from the purpose of disinvesting our public sector companies as this is the way forward if we believe that making our market competitive alone would deliver the much needed impetus to our economy. The NDA government even constituted a Disinvestment Ministry and its Minister Mr. Arun Shourie with all his earnest commitment to disinvestment, is forced all the time to engage himself in the verbal fights and debates with his colleagues in the cabinet rather than implementing the policy of the coalition government. There is a total lack of coordination among the ministries.

Despite the high-level committees such as the Rangarajan Committee advocating disinvestment of government equity down to 26 per cent in the vast majority of enterprises excepting those considered "strategic'' entities demanding government control, disinvestment process did not take off with the expected vigour and urgency. The United Front Government set up the Disinvestment Commission in 1997. The aim was to solicit the expert inputs on how to go about disinvesting government stakes in as many as 58 enterprises. The recommendations of this Commission did not transform into policy decisions thanks to the lack of political agreement amongst the United Front partners.

The disinvestment commission should be armed with statutory powers. As the first Chairman of this Commission Dr. G.V. Ramakrishna suggested disinvestment should not be seen only as the means for augmenting budgetary resources of the Government. The proceeds of disinvestment should be made use of to strengthen the viable public enterprises and also to set up a social safety net for the employees who would be affected by the restructuring. One of the major impediments of disinvestment process is the opposition allegation that a public sector is sold for a meager price. In stead of referring this kind of accusations to Comptroller and Auditor General or constituting an Inquiry Commission, it is better to devise a method whereby the price is fixed by a rational methodology about which no suspicion can be rised.

Recently, the NDA government revived the Disinvestment Commission with Dr.R.H. Patil as the new Chairman. He must fix a reasonable target for the earnings from disinvestment and go about it without any further delay. He should learn the lessons from the past experience and he would do well if he convinces the government to implement the suggestions of the first Chairman of the Commission. The government should go ahead with its proposal and set up a separate Department of Disinvestment, to which all the units earmarked for sale, as proposed, must be attached. This would greatly help in the much needed coordination among the Ministries. The Disinvestment Ministry should be taking care of this department. It is a comforting news that as this article is being penned, the disagreement between George Fernandes and Ram Naik is  resolved over the disinvestment of Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum. Mr. Shourie is going to submit a note on the decision to disinvestment these corporations to the Parliament soon.

If the Cabinet Committee on Disinvestment and the Committee of Secretaries who are currently overseeing the disinvestment process have to give their consent for any decision of the Disinvestment Ministry, we would rather not talk about disinvestment. With too many decision makers, the whole process is bound to be delayed and may even be derailed at the last minute of execution. Equally difficult is, as yet, to read the signals that the Government may want to send out with regard to the disinvestment.