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Petro ministry gets ready for Sat's CCD meet

Petroleum Minister Ram Naik, who returned from Brazil last evening, gave final touches to the presentation on Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd and Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd sell-off to be made at Saturday's crucial meeting of Cabinet Committee of Divestment.

During the three-and-a-half hour long discussion at his office with his senior officials, Naik reportedly directed them to modify the earlier presentation as well as put forth views of his ministry firmly on the issue of HPCL and BPCL divestment.

Despite finalisation of presentation, the ministry officials were not sure that the CCD meeting, slated for 1800 hrs on Saturday, will take place or get postponed because of the differences that exist among the Cabinet colleagues.

However, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee has convened a crucial meeting with Divestment Minister Arun Shourie and Ram Naik on Saturday morning to sort out the issue.

''If the differences between petroleum minister and divestment minister persists, the CCD meeting is likely to be postponed again,'' sources said and added that the CCD meeting scheduled for last week of August was postponed as there were sharp differences among Cabinet colleagues.

While the divestment ministry is in favour of selling the government stake in HPCL and BPCL to private companies, the petroleum ministry wanted that public sector companies should also be allowed to participate in the sell-off.

Various other issues are yet to be settled before divesting the oil companies so that there would be no shortage of petroleum products in the next ten or twenty years.

UNI

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