Disinvestment & Not Monetization Answer To Balance Economy- The Budget of 2022-23.

Though `monetization' was the buzz word of Budget for 2021, it is finally disinvestment that the Government is aiming to meet the gap of resources. After Air India handover on 27th January,2022, it is Neelachal Ispat that is going to the Tatas for 12.1K Crore. Air India is set to give impetus to disinvestment to the exercise the Government is bent upon giving a thrust. But mere objective of the Government will not do. People in the Government have to be trained to take disinvestment forward. Disinvestment in the right perspective would add to resource for development and social development.

Public Issue of LICI is set open the public issue in the month of March, 2022. IPO of LICI will give the Government more than Rs 1 lakh Crore?from the public issue. It would be five times greater than the amount raised by Paytm , few months back. It was the country's largest IPO. LICI is not a company within the meaning of The Companies Act, 2013. It has been formed by the the Life Insurance of India Act passed on 19 June 1956 creating the Life Insurance Corporation of India, which started operation in September in the same year. Accordingly, The Registrar of Companies ( `RoC') will not be the regulatory authority. IDBI Bank Ltd., its associate is regulated by The RoC. Its business is governed by The Banking Regulation Act, 1949. LICI is governed by IRDA, the regulator of insurance business.

The shares of LICI will be listed with NSE and BSE but its regulatory authority will be IRDA and SEBI. It will not be required to file its Balance Sheet with RoC as it is not registered with it. The LIC Act has been amended to allow the policy holders to subscribe in the public issue. The issue price of the shares will as per the SEBI norms. The country is eagerly awaiting for the issue price per share to be announced. The proceeds from the shares which the Government will be divesting will be of great support to the Government to meet the deficit in receipt side.

Disinvestment has always been in the Government agenda since the first disinvestment of Modern Food Industries Ltdl, in the year 2000 under Vajpayee Government . Disinvestment cost Vajpayeeji to lose the election in 2004. But succeeding Government had to resort to it as a means to finance the Government.

A look at disinvestment during 2019-20 was targetted at 1.05 Lac Crore but the amount of receipt was half of the target set. In 2020-21, the amount realised was Rs 32,000 Crore against the target of Rs 2.10 Crore. The target for the current year is Rs 1.75 Lac Crore and this figure would be no where near its target.

Budgets which involves finance are very much required not only for countries but also entities. There are corporations in US like Apple the economy of which is as large as any county's economy. The first budget present in India was on 7th April, 1860 during British Rule. It has continued since then. With Indian Independence in 1947, the first Budget was presented by the first Finance Minister of India, R.K. Shanmukham Chetty on 21/11/1947. Morarji Desai presented the Budget the maximum times so far being 10 times. P.Chidambaram presented it 9 times followed by Pranab Mukherjee for 8 times. The logest budget speech is that of our present Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman . It lasted for 2 hours 41 minutes. The speech was for 1 hour 31 minutes. The shortest one so far consisted of 800 words by Hirubhai M. Patel in 1977. It was an interim budget speech.

Budgets were presented at 5 pm which was changed to 11 am by Yashwant Sinha, Finance Minister in Vajpayeeji's cabinet. Arun Jatley presented the budget speech in 2017 on 1st February. It has continued to be on the date since then. Earlier the Budget Speech used to come in a suitcase. In 2019 , Nirmala Sitharaman brought in a red bag. From 2021 it came in a tab.

Disinvestment is going to be the saviour in this financial year. In the next three years monetization is likely to play a significant role.