Ramakrishna said one of the main reasons for this was the approaching elections and with a new Government expected only in October-November, the Centre would find it hard to push through its disinvestment proposals. The time lag between the decision and its actual implementation is generally eight months to a year, he said.

Even in those cases where the Cabinet had already taken a decision, the Government might not be be able to garner much. For example, the maximum that can be garnered from 5 per cent disinvestment in IOC, if it comes through, will be not more than Rs 500 crore.

Ramakrishna said that in respect of IOC, the Government ought to have gone ahead with the disinvestment way back in July last year when the price was hovering around at Rs 476per share. But the opportunity was not seized and since then the price had fallen sharply to Rs 331 a share on Tuesday.

Divestment in other PSUs like Balco, Modern Foods could therefore bring in only Rs 2,000 crore which meant fulfilment of one-fifth of the target, he stated.

Ramakrishna said that he was surprised that the Cabinet had taken a decision in regard to disinvestment of shares in CMC even as a reference was made to the Commission two or three months ago. In the case of Indian Airlines, the commission was not consulted at all.

This implied that the Government had flouted the guidelines formulated by it regarding the commission's role. Going by an industry-ministry resolution on the subject dated August 23, 1996, all disinvestment cases had to be referred to the commission. Incidentally, it was on this date the commision came into being.

Ramakrishna said by August 22 when the three-year tenure of the commission would come to an end, it would be forwarding all disinvestment cases, includingpending ones, in respect of more than 40 PSUs, which would take at least five years for the Government to process.

But the stark reality was that the Centre had not implemented even one in the last three years the commission had been in operation, he said.

Ramakrishna clarified that the commission had never sought statutory powers from the Government and "we do not need those". What he had been pleading with the Government was to set up a full-time implementation machinery which could well be within the finance ministry's jurisdiction, he said.

The Government, he said, had collected roughly Rs 13,000 crore so far through sale of shares in PSUs since the disinvestment process was set in motion in 1991-92. But instead of diverting the amount for developmental purposes, the government had chosen to utilise it to bridge its budgetary deficit, he said.

Some of the developmental projects could include building houses, hospitals. With say Rs 1,000 crore, four lakh houses could be constructed and with theremaining sum, the figure could go up to more than 52 lakh.

To achieve this, the commission had told the Standing Parliament Committee on industry ministry to set up a disinvestment fund in late 1997, but its recommendation has still not been accepted by the Government.