Even as the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh failed to break the deadlock over disinvestment of Coal India ltd (CIl), and left it to the Coal Ministry to prepare a viable action plan on how to do it, the department is upbeat about wrapping up the exercise before the end of this fiscal.
Sources privy to the development have claimed that though CIl’s unions are adamant about putting the coal behemoth up for disinvestment and have given an all India strike notice between December 17 to 19 opposing any Government’s stake sale, some hope has emanated from the fact that the workers are open to other options like share buy back and special dividend offer and are awaiting an offer from the Coal Ministry’s as well as CIl’s side to invite them for talks to achieve the exercise of raising funds through CIl.
General Secretary of All India Coal Workers Federation (AICWF) Jibon Roy told The Pioneer that hopes have been fuelled owing to the deadlock in the Prime Minister’s meeting (convened by him on December 3 with Coal Minister and CIl representatives).
He said that with deadlock over disinvestment, the Government may be forced to look at two other available options namely share buy back and special dividend offer. “Now after this we hope that the Government will talk to us. We are not averse to any other option and only want to ensure that disinvestment of CIl does not take place where Centre sells off its stake in it,” he added.
Roy said that though the strike notice still stands, they are open to dialogue with the Centre on other available options. The CIl union consists of left leaning AICWF and CITU, BJP-backed Bhartiya Mazdoor Sangh and the Congress-affiliated INTUC. Apart from INTUC, none of the other labour bodies are supporting the disinvestment move and are ready to strike work.
Under these circumstances, if the Government hopes to raise funds through CIl within this fiscal, then it will have to find a way out through negotiations with the unions, sources said. Initially as per the original plan, the Government was aiming to sell its 10 per cent stake in CIl to raise Rs 20,000 crore (as CIl was the main driver of achieving its Rs 40,000 crore disinvestment target for the current fiscal). However after unions’ pressure, it reduced this to 5 per cent stake sale, which also the unions are opposing.
Though Coal Ministry are refusing to divulge their next move, sources said that they are not left with much options but to enter into negotiations with the unions if they want to achieve this during the current fiscal. Though they may have to let go with the stake sale plan considering the prevailing mood of the unions and the impending three-day strike scheduled for December 17.