On Tuesday, the government extended the bid submission deadline for Air India’s sale by two months to 30 June. Earlier, its effort to offload a big stake in Bharat Petroleum Corp. Ltd had run into trouble. With both aviation and oil sectors in crisis after covid-19 paralysed much of the world, it was unrealistic to expect buyer enthusiasm for these state-owned companies. Given the economic uncertainty, analysts are not betting on a smooth disinvestment run this year.
In theory, quick sell-offs could help the Centre raise the money needed for a robust fiscal stimulus package. With demand for assets so low, however, we may need to find other ways to extract value from them.
