New Delhi, Nov 17: Petroleum Minister Ram naik on Wednesday stoutly defended the disinvestment of Gas Authority of india (Gail) earlier this month and said upto 12 per cent government equity in Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) would be divested in the same transparent manner during January-March 2000."Other than some political criticism, no allegation of any scam has been made against us in overseas disinvestment of 135 million Gail shares on November 4," Naik said
The union petroleum minister said that "There was no hanky panky in this issue and we will go by the same approach in our next disinvestment in IOC."Indian Oil Corporation would hit both the domestic and overseas market to offload upto 12 per cent of government equity in the corporation subject to market conditions, he said at the economic editors conference here.
"We are planning to go for disinvesting about 10 to 12 per cent of government equity in IOC during the last quarter of the current fiscal in both the domestic as well as the international market," Naik said.
IOC chairman and managing director MA Pathan indicated that he would prefer financial institutions and individuals picking up equity in the company rather than the corporate entities and the corporation had already conveyed its feelings to the government.
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