Rahul slams Centre's move to sell profit-making CONCOR

Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday slammed the Modi government's move to sell profit-making public sector units such as the Container Corporation.

Rahul's comments came after the employees' union of Container Corporation of India met him, seeking his intervention in asking the government to reconsider the decision for a strategic sale of the PSU.

“Highly profitable & strategic, the Container Corporation (CONCOR) is a PSU jewel that some of the PM's greedy crony capitalist friends are hungry for & the government plans to sell,” Rahul said.

The union members, in a memorandum to Gandhi, pointed out that CONCOR had received Rs 65 crore as paid-up capital from the government in 1989-90 and over the years, the market value of the PSU has reached Rs 34,733 crore.

It pointed out that the market value of CONCOR would increase to Rs one lakh crore after the completion of the dedicated frieght corridor, as all of its 83 container terminals were located in the vicinity of the corridor.

Besides CONCOR, the Modi government also plans to disinvest its stake in Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL), a move that has not gone down well with the Opposition.

The Congress had also questioned the government's plan to disinvest Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL), saying that the oil PSU has assets more valuable than the money its stake sale is hoped to earn to the national exchequer.

Like CONCOR, Congress pointed out that BPCL too was a profit-making PSU with four refineries, 14,800 petrol pumps, 123 petrol depots, 52 LPG plants, 5907 LPG distributors and 56 aviation service stations.