Cabinet may take up VSNL, MTNL privatisation on June 23

Cabinet may take up VSNL, MTNL privatisation on June 23

New Delhi, June 7: The Government is likely to decide on privatisation of telecom giants VSNL and MTNL and chart a roadmap during the meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Disinvestment (CCD) scheduled for June 23.

"We will meet on June 23 to fix up a calender for the entire process of disinvestment in Mahanagar Telephone Nigam and Videsh Sanchar Nigam... The proces is not as simple as it looks and various issues needs to be sorted out first," Telecom Secretary Shyamal Ghosh told reporters after the first meeting of National Telephone Advisory and services committees RPT National Telephone Advisory and Services Committees here.

He, however, did not comment on the quantum of disinvestment in the two corporations. Stating that VSNL, in which government has 59 per cent stake, had a long distance monopoly till 2004, he said government would have to decide if it wanted to end the monopoly earlier and how in the light of corporation's proposed overseas issue.

He said that government would also have to take a complete view on corporatisation of Department of Telecom before taking a final decision on MTNL, which was confined to just two basic circles. MTNL had deferred a minor disinvestment issue last year to bring down the government equity from 56 per cent to over 51 per cent in the wake of adverse market conditions.

When contacted, Pradeep Baijal, Secretary Department of Disinvestment (DoD) told PTI that logic of public monopoly in telecom sector was no longer there adding that "technology is forcing us to release the monopoly".