The political economy of CPSE disinvestment: Has national wealth been put on a distress sale?
in India https://countercurrents.org/2022/02/the-political-economy-of-cpse-disinvestment-has-national-wealth-been-put-on-a-distress-sale/ — by E A S Sarma — 16/02/2022
The few oligarchs who fund the political parties and issue diktats on policy are waiting with their war chests of funds ready to buy the Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs) for a song, along with their enormous wealth. The whole exercise is to be completed in a couple of years and those CPSE heads who fail to cooperate will be summarily removed, with the bureaucrats of the concerned Ministries taking over the CPSEs.
Out of the 256 CPSUs, which were operating in 2019-20, 171 earned Rs 1.38 lakh Crores of profits. They contributed Rs 3.76 lakh Crores of tax revenue to the Central public exchequer. They paid Rs 72,136 Crores as dividends to the Centre.
Over the years, the political parties’ appetite for funds increased in leaps and bounds, forcing them to explore new avenues. In 2009, they came up with the innovative idea of an “Electoral Trust” as the new vehicle to channel company donations on a much large scale,without attracting tax liability.
the NDA government went a step further by removing the existing cap on donations and introducing an opaque system of “Electoral Bonds” as the new vehicle to channel company donations on a much larger scale, without the public knowing where they were coming from (https://thewire.in/politics/fcra-reviving-lapsed-law-amending-retrospectively-trumps-ethical-legal-barriers).