Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Angul, Apr 21:

Employees of National Aluminium Corporation Ltd (Nalco) today held a massive demonstration in front of the plant’s administration building here protesting against disinvestment of the navaratna public sector undertaking (PSU) by the Centre.

Employees and their leaders criticized the Centre and Nalco management for selling stake in the profit-making PSU.

The protestors opposed disinvestment of 9.2% of government holding by the Centre in Nalco in spite of it earning a profit of Rs 500 crore on its stake.

“We want to warn the government that unless it stays away from its decision to disinvest government’s stake in Nalco we will be forced to shut the factory,” said Prasanna Kumar Mallick, president, Nalco Co-ordination Committee.

Notably, on Thursday the Central government which had 74.58% stake in Nalco offloaded 9.2% of its holding by exercising the green shoe option, which is chosen to retain oversubscription of the offer for sale. The Centre had originally put up 5% of its stake for sale. The Centre has garnered Rs 1,200 crore by offloading the shares. With the offloading, the government’s holding in Nalco has dropped to 65.38%.

The Central government’s disinvestment of Nalco has been opposed by BJD and Congress while the BJP has welcomed the initiative.