Nirmala Sitharaman also said she would soon be meeting small finance banks and NBFCs in
order to review the credit being extended by them to businesses.
PSU privatization: The government is working on the stake sale process of about 23
public sector companies whose disinvestment has already been cleared by the cabinet, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said she would soon be meeting small finance banks and NBFCs in order to review the credit being extended by them to business.
In a conversation with Hero Enterprise Chairman Sunil Kant Munjal, She said the govt as a part of the Aatmanirbhar Bharat package had announced opening from all sectors for private participation.
“The final call is yet to be made on which sectors are going to be called ‘strategic’, that has to be announced and I can’t preempt what announcement is likely to come. “Sectors which we are going to be called strategic, the private will obviously be allowed to come in but the public sectors will be limited to a maximum of four units, “she said.
She said this would lead to the consolidation of public sector undertaking (PSUs) as well as scaling
up of their operations.
The minister also mentioned the government wants to sell the stake in public sector companies at a time when it fetches the right price while talking about the disinvestment plan Cabinet has cleared nearly 22-23 such PSUs for disinvestment. The intent is clear, we will have to disinvest those which had already been cleared by the Cabinet, “Sitharaman said.
The government has set a disinvestment target for the 2020-21 fiscal of Rs 2.10 lakh crore. Of this, disinvestment of public sector undertakings will contribute Rs 1.20 lakh crore and stake sale in financial institutions will contribute the rest.
With respect to extending credit to the industry, (MSMEs) can avail loans under the Emergency
Credit Line Guarantee Scheme (ECLGS), micro, small and medium enterprises, Sitharaman said. As of July 23, 2020, the total amount sanctioned under the 100 percent Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme by public and private sector banks stands at Rs 1,30,491.79 crore, of which Rs 82,065.01 crore has already been disclosed.
“Now we are pushing the banks saying that it’s not their risk anymore, they should now
facilitate the process as we have taken the risk on ourselves,…
“We have made it very clear to banks that they are not going to sit on the judgement of anybody’s
viability. Now it is the question of giving them resources, hand holding them so that they
survive,” Sitharaman added.