Set up task force to fill 38 DIPAM vacancies: Panel

The Standing Committee on Finance has flagged the “crippling” 43 per cent vacancy in the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM), and recommended setting up a task force to ensure the early filling of all 38 vacant positions.

Lamenting that “no tangible progress” has been made in resolving vacancies at DIPAM since the Committee’s report presented in March, the panel said, “for a department overseeing a public asset portfolio exceeding Rs 42.76 lakh crore, routine administrative correspondence is grossly inadequate”.

The Standing Committee, in its report tabled in Parliament in March, had noted that maintaining only 51 officers against a sanctioned strength of 89 - with critical shortages at the Director (11 vacancies) and Under Secretary (8 vacancies) levels - “severely jeopardises” the department’s ability to execute complex transactions like the IDBI Bank sale or finalise CPSE MoUs.

Such significant manpower shortages in a field requiring highly specialised financial and legal expertise undermine the department’s capacity to effectively manage the disinvestment target and the recycling of prime real estate assets, it had noted.

In their “action-taken” reply, the finance ministry said that DIPAM has been pursuing the matter with the concerned departments on priority and that the matter of filling up vacancies of ASOs (Assistant Section Officer), SOs (Section Officer), Under Secretaries, and Assistant Directors was taken up with the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), Department of Expenditure, and Department of Economic Affairs.

The Committee viewed with deep concern that DIPAM, despite overseeing an ambitious value maximisation agenda, has been allocated a modest budget of Rs 55.92 crore and is operating with a “crippling 43 per cent vacancy rate”.

“The Committee, therefore, urge the Ministry of Finance to pursue the matter on priority through a dedicated inter-departmental task force with DoPT and DoE to ensure early filling up of all 38 vacant positions,” the report said.

The Committee, in its March report, had urged DIPAM to formulate a carefully calibrated roadmap for the rollout of InvITs and REITs, supported by robust valuation safeguards and a transparent oversight mechanism.

It had recommended that DIPAM must finalise a clear legal strategy - incorporating “Golden Share” or indirect control models - to safeguard strategic autonomy in entities where state shareholding may drop below 51 per cent.

The ministry, in its reply, said there is no proposal at present to reduce the Government of India’s stake below 51 per cent in CPSEs except in those cases wherein strategic disinvestment is being pursued as per the approval of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA).

The Committee, in its Action Taken report, however, said that it considers this reactive stance “insufficient for complex, modern capital markets”, and re-emphasised the need to establish benchmarked governance standards by proactively codifying a legal architecture to permanently safeguard the Government’s strategic oversight and national security interests in vital CPSEs whenever public equity dilution below 51 per cent occurs in the future.

The ministry has also informed the Standing Committee on Finance, chaired by Bhartruhar Mahtab, that work is currently underway to develop a calibrated roadmap for the establishment of CPSE REITs.

The Committee recommend that the forthcoming roadmap rigorously integrate a standardised, independent expert-led valuation framework to ensure that market volatility does not result in the undervaluation or distress sale of strategic national real estate assets.