The central government said on Tuesday that it has received ₹4,353 crore as dividend tranches from seven central public sector enterprises (CPSEs). The PSUs that paid dividends to the central government include Coal India, Hindustan Aeronautics, Cochin Shipyard and others.
“Government has respectively received about ₹575 crore and ₹2,038 crore from Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd and Coal India Ltd as dividend tranches,” tweeted Tuhin Kanta Pandey, the secretary of Department of Investment and Public Asset Management.
In another tweet, Pandey mentioned that the government has received about ₹887 crore from Power Finance Corporation (PFC) and ₹653 crore from Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd as dividend tranches.
Meanwhile, Bharat Dynamics Limited (BDL) has paid ₹100 crore as dividend tranches to the government, while Manganese Ore India Ltd and Cochin Shipyard Ltd have paid ₹33 crore and ₹67 crore, respectively.
Earlier this week, the central government told the parliament that the total profit of profit-making CPSEs increased by 37.53% and total loss of loss-making CPSEs decreased by 29.86% during FY 2020-21 over FY 2019-20.
Out of the 255 operational CPSEs in the country, 177 are profit making, reporting a total profit of ₹1,89,320 crore, Minister of State for Finance Bhagwat Kisanrao Karad told the Lok Sabha in a written reply at the start of this week. The cumulative turnover of 255 CPSEs in the financial year 2020-21 stood at ₹24,26,045 crore.
Based on the information provided by the Navratna CPSEs for FY 2020-21, the performance in terms of overall profit has shown improvement over the previous year in respect of most of the Navaratna CPSEs, Karad said in his reply. None of the Navaratna CPSEs have reported loss of jobs due to cost cutting efforts, he further added.
In its strategic disinvestment policy announced in February last year, the finance ministry stated that it intends to sell a substantial portion of its stake in PSUs in order to reduce the financial burden and exit loss-making PSUs. The proceeds are to be used for funding the welfare and development programmes run by the government.
So far, the government has successfully sold its stake in only eight out of 36 PSUs listed for disinvestment and leveraged on the participation of private players. The remaining PSUs are still in the process of being divested or haven’t even initiated the process.
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