(PTI)
The government should privatise ONGC rather than give away its prime producing oil and gas fields to private companies “for a song and bleed the PSU to death”, say company executives. Selling just 18 percent out of the government’s 68.07 percent shareholding in Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) will fetch over Rs 41,000 crore at current market price, many times more than the investment commitment it may get from giving away 60 percent in 11 identified oil and gas fields of the company, they said.
Speaking to PTI on the condition of anonymity, a cross- section of ONGC employees, officials and executives expressed dismay at the move by Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) to handover 11 of the company’s fields including Kalok, Ankleshwar, Gandhar and Santhal – the big four oilfields in Gujarat, to private sector on grounds of raising output. “If they think ONGC is inefficient, the company should be privatised.
The proposed approach will only drive the company, which is India’s most profitable PSU, the Air India way,” one of them said. Cutting government stake to just one share less than 50 percent would give government enough revenues to meet its disinvestment target as well as bring in “an efficient private sector management”, he said.
