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Our Bureau

New Delhi , Aug 5

THE Minister of State for Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises, Mr Santosh Mohan Dev, today said the Government has put on hold the proposal to sell a 10 per cent stake in Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd.

Speaking at the sidelines of a conference on Directors Certification Programme on Corporate Governance jointly organised by SCOPE and the Academy of Corporate Governance, the Minister said that the proposal to disinvest in BHEL has been put on hold because of administrative reasons.

The Government currently holds a 67.72 per cent stake in BHEL.

On the plans to further dilute the Government stake in Maruti Udyog Ltd, the Minister said, the Government is not pursuing its plan to sell its stake in the carmaker for the time being. Suzuki Motor Corporation holds a majority stake in Maruti, with the Government's stake at 18 per cent.

Asked about his Ministry's proposal to sell Andrew Yule's stake in another public sector company Tidewater Oil, the Minister said the issue had been referred to the Board for Reconstruction of Public Sector Enterprises. Andrew Yule holds a 26 per cent stake in Tidewater, an industrial lubricant company.

Earlier, speaking at the inaugural session of the conference, Mr Dev said that as per the National Common Minimum Programme, the Government was committed to devolving full managerial and commercial autonomy to successful, profit making companies operating in a competitive environment. The Minister also said that the Government was taking all necessary steps to enable and empower public sector enterprises to adopt good corporate governance practices so that they become efficient and self-reliant.

On the amendments in Clause 49 of the Listing Agreement, brought in by Securities and Exchange Board of India, to tighten criteria for independent directors, the Minister stated that this was being done to allow independent directors to have a balanced perspective of the organisation and not to represent any narrow interest group.

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