New Delhi, June 7: The government has asked VSNL to reconvene the board meeting and review more transparently the controversial decision of investing Rs 1,200 crore in Tata Teleservices. Senior officials from Tatas-managed VSNL and Communication Ministry are believed to have held a closed door meeting to resolve the issue in which the ministry has reiterated that VSNL must review its decision taken in the board meeting on May 28.
As long as the investments by VSNL are done in a manner that the value of those investments equally benefit all shareholders, Department of Telecommunication or government as a minority shareholder will not object to it, highly placed sources said.
For this, VSNL board must be made aware of all the pros and cons of the investment and give opinion on the company into which investment is being proposed, they said.
The meeting took place on Thursday and Tatas are expected to respond to the ministry's requirement by Friday or Saturday, failing which the government would exercise its options, they added. Sources said that senior VSNL officials including Kishore Chauker and N Srinath have held a series of meetings with ministry officials besides meeting the Communications Minister Pramod Mahajan.
They said that the government's objective was to ensure that the value of investments in various companies including VSNL continued to increase and not diminish.
The government is the custodian of the public money lying with VSNL which was recently privatised and it was government's responsibility to ensure that interests of all stakeholders were maintained, sources said.
Government would prevent VSNL from being used to benefit only one shareholder as in case of Tata Teleservices investment.
The ministry sources, however, said there were never any differences between the Communication and Disinvestment ministries. Bureau Report