Coming Soon: The Grand Sarkari Sale

This will be the most superior of all public asset sales: Rs 3 lakh crore of revenue monetising public sector transmission lines, telecommunications towers, pipelines, airports and, as ET had previously reported, land plots.

Niti Aayog, after consulting many ministries, the government expert group has developed a list of assets that can be sold, including Power Grid power transmission lines, BSNL and MTNL towers, Gail India Ltd pipes, airports in some cities and first level real estate owned by companies in the central public sector. The CPSE on the Niti list that has monetizable land assets include National Textile Corporation, Hindustan Antibiotics and NTPC.

 A government official said, "The idea is to push CPSEs to monetise their existing assets and use the proceeds to fund greenfield assets."

Unspent income to go to the government

The official added that if the CPSE cannot use the income for capital expenditures, they will flow to the government through dividends or other routes. The official spoke out of the register.

"Towers of BSNL & MTNL can be further leased out, or in some cases sold outright," said the official cited above and added that the GAIL pipeline business could be withdrawn from the parent company and granted in a long-term lease or wholly sold.

Already BSNL and MTNL have rented 13,051 and 392 mobile tower sites, from private telecommunications service providers.

Power Grid owns and operates around 1.45,400 km of transmission line circuit, GAIL has more than 11,500 km of natural gas pipelines in the country.

In March 2019, the Canadian Brookfield fund had purchased 1,400 km of pipes owned by Reliance Industries for Rs 14,000 million.

The Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) is planning to appoint consultants who can advise transaction services for the monetisation of land assets.

This year there will also be more focus on strategic sales, as the government is mandated to reduce its participation in selected public sector firms below 51%. The government has set a divestment target of Rs 1.05 lakh crore in 2019-20.