Centre gets financial bids for privatisation of NINL: DIPAM Secretary

The Central government has received financial bids for privatisation of Neelachal Ispat Nigam Ltd.

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New Delhi: The government has received financial bids for privatisation of Neelachal Ispat Nigam Ltd (NINL), DIPAM Secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey said on Thursday. "Financial bids received for strategic disinvestment of Neelachal Ispat Nigam Limited. Process now moves to concluding stage," Pandey said.

The Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) had in January this year invited preliminary bids for strategic sale of NINL. The last date for bid submission was March 29. Following that, multiple expressions of interest from bidders were received.

Steel majors Tata Steel, JSW Steel, JSPL and infrastructure company MEIL have submitted bids for state-owned NINL, according to sources.

They said DIPAM will evaluate the offers and is expected to announce the results by January-end.

"Companies like Tata Steel, JSW Steel, JSPL and MEIL today participated in the bidding process of NINL. They have submitted their bids to DIPAM with their offer price," a source said.

December 23 was the date to bid for NINL.

While JSW Steel and JSPL declined to comment on participation in the bidding, a query sent to Tata Steel and Hyderabad-based Megha Engineering and Infrastructures Ltd (MEIL) remained unanswered.

NINL is a joint venture of MMTC, NMDC, BHEL, MECON and 2 Odisha Government PSUs OMC and IPICOL.

In January last year, the Cabinet had approved strategic disinvestment of equity shareholding of MMTC (49.78 per cent), NMDC (10.10 per cent), MECON (0.68 per cent), BHEL (0.68 per cent), IPICOL (12.00 per cent) and OMC (20.47 per cent) in NINL.

For 2021-22, the government has set a disinvestment target of Rs 1.75 lakh crore. Also Read: Brokerage firm bullish on THIS Rakesh Jhunjhunwala portfolio stock; predicts 20% return

So far this fiscal year, the government has netted Rs 9,330 crore through minority stake sale in CPSEs. Also Read: RBI extends card tokenisation deadline by 6 months till June-end