KSEBOA - KSEB Officers' Association

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Offloading of shares of central public sector undertaking NTPC, India's largest power company, in the stock market would lead to a scam, CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat said."Right now NTPC shares are being offloaded in the stock market. Some of you would have seen that NTPC share price in the market has dropped sharply. There is going to be another scam," Karat told a press conference at Kolkata.

Claiming that the government was planning to sell shares in 60 central PSUs that would be shortlisted in the stock market in the next two years, he said "this aggressive disinvestment drive is being undertaken to bridge the fiscal deficit which has reached nearly seven per cent of the GDP."
Communist Party of India (Marxist) noted that shares in National Hydro Power Corporation, Oil India Limited and NTPC Limited had already been disinvested and that the Government was planning to sell shares in as many as 60 PSUs in the next two years. "The deceptive concept of 'people’s ownership' is being used to mislead public opinion and conceal the true nature of disinvestment," it said.

"The government is forgoing future income from dividends. Worse, it is transferring State-owned assets to private hands. The NTPC shares are being sold cheaply, showing how public assets are being plundered," it said.

"Rather than mobilizing more taxes from the private corporate sector by doing away with tax exemptions, the Congress-led government is opting for the irrational course of disinvestment which is only meant to benefit the big financial players in the stock market," the statement said.

The CPI (M) also strongly opposed the recent recommendation of the Kirit Parikh Committee for market-determined prices of petrol and diesel and for an increase of Rs 100 per cylinder of cooking gas.

It said such a step would have a cascading impact on rising prices of essential commodities which are already at an all-time high and would lead to a further burden on the people.

The party said it was the wrong policies of the Government which had led to the situation of high food inflation and that the redressals suggested were also misconceived.

He said the party's Central Committee has decided to mobilise the people against disinvestment and support trade unions and public sector employees against the step.

Source - PTI