CITU Condemns Retrograde Move to Sell Out
Public Sector Companies With Huge Asset

New Delhi, June 15: The Centre of Indian Trade Unions condemns the retrograde move by the Govt of India to fast track selling out the Central Public Sector Enterprises with its huge asset base to private hands. With this dubious intent, the NITI Ayog has been made to submit a list of CPSEs to Prime Minister’s office recommending fast track sale of those companies on various pretext.

It is a matter of alarm that in order to facilitate sale-out of the CPSEs, the NITI Ayog has been made to recommend further capital investment from national exchequer in some of those CPSEs like Air India, FACT , Chennai Petroleum, Madras Fertilisers etc, not just to revamp their operational efficiency, but to make them saleable to private hands.

The history of such strategic sale of around nine CPSEs, like IPCL, BALCO etc during the previous NDA regime reveals that each of those CPSEs with their huge asset-base were sold at prices less than one fourth of their real asset value at then market prices, that too, virtually to a single bidder, as observed by CAG at that material time. The Narendra Modi Govt at present has become more desperate in selling out huge national assets in the chosen CPSEs to its private corporate constituency, both domestic and foreign, at a throw away price, much to the detriment of national interest. Two years’ BJP regime could not create nor facilitate any new establishments for productive employment generation in any significant scale except making loud noises through media-hype and creating statistical illusions on GDP growth; on the other hand the Govt is desperately moving ahead for mega-sale of huge national assets through sale of CPSEs.

The NITI Ayog while making such disastrous recommendations along with the list of CPSEs for sale, went to the extent of arguing that “non-priority sector CPSE, once revived, could always be considered for strategic disinvestment”. Could devility go further ? Can Airlines, petroleum companies, fertilizer producing units be construed as “non-priority sector” in our country by any stretch of imagination ? But a Govt in a hurry to establish its corporate loyalty and also so called “reforms-credential” can certainly go to such devilish extent, totally unconcerned of national interest.

Such retrograde move of frittering away national assets in country’s CPSEs must be combated and resisted by the working class movement of the country. The united platform of country’s trade union movement comprising almost all the trade unions and federations of the country has already decided to go in for countrywide general strike on 2nd September 2016 demanding, inter alia, the withdrawal of such disastrous move of sale-out of national assets and CPSEs, in order to defend the working people as well as to defend the national economy.

The CITU while calling upon the working people and trade unions in the country irrespective of affiliations to prepare for staging the countrywide General Strike on 2nd September 2016 in a massive way, also calls for organizing united protest in workplaces and industrial centres against such retrograde move of privatization by the BJP Govt.