Investigative-journalist-turned disinvestment Minister Arun Shourie looked every bit his 60-years as he came out of the four-hour, September 7, meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Disinvestment (CCD).

The CCD had just decided to stay the proposed disinvestment of state-owned oil majors HPCL and BPCL-something Shourie had been pushing for, and something Petroleum Minister Ram Naik had been stoutly resisting-by three months.

''Are you going to resign?'' asked a disembodied voice from the gaggle of reporters waiting to speak to Shourie, voicing a rumour that was doing the rounds of the Capital. But Shourie isn't leaving. He is staying on to fight and see disinvestment through to its logical denouement.

The three-month moratorium could well be the result of successful lobbying by corporates keen to spike Reliance Industries' chances of bagging either HPCL or BPCL, an acquisition the company needs to put a retail-face to its end-to-end petroleum strategy.

Reliance Industries and multinational oil major Shell were the main players in the fray, and most oil sector watchers had assumed that each would be able to bag one of the public sector oil companies.

UNION PETROLEUM MINISTER RAM NAIK Naik can't countenance the sale of HPCL and BPCL. Blame it on ideology or the desire to retain his own control over the oil majors, but this was the man who got IOC to (over) spend Rs 1,153 crore on the acquisition of IBP. UNION TELECOMMUNICATIONS MINISTER PRAMOD MAHAJAN Mr Telecom and Shourie ran afoul when VSNL decided to invest Rs 1,200 crore from its reserves in Tata Teleservices. And now Mahajan is opposed to the disinvestment (of however small a stake) in MTNL and BSNL. PRIME MINISTER ATAL BIHARI VAJPAYEE The Prime Minister is in favour of disinvestment and backs Shourie, but he has been unable to keep his Cabinet colleagues in line. Worse, the need to keep the RSS and the NDA allies happy may force him to sacrifice the process, the man, or both. DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER L.K. ADVANI The #2 man in the government is also in favour of the disinvestment process. However, he has thus far stayed away from the controversy surrounding it. The larger issue of national security takes up much of his time.

The freeze brings an end to a one-year run: since August last, Shourie has managed to find takers for 31 public sector companies and earned the government Rs 11,350 crore in revenues.

Opposition to Shourie (and to the disinvestment process) gathered momentum in the past few months. Although the process of valuation of these companies has been as transparent as any process of valuation can be, several worthies in the Cabinet have deemed it fit to raise this red flag; maybe, it is the very transparency of the process that irks them.

And Shourie's run-ins with several of his cabinet colleagues haven't helped. Reports in some newspapers indicate that the disinvestment process' staunchest critic at the CCD meeting was former Tourism Minister Ananth Kumar, who has been at the receiving end of articles written by Shourie, and published by Business Today, on the mess that was (and is) the ITDC disinvestments.

It isn't just Naik, or Kumar, or Telecommunications Minister Pramod Mahajan who are miffed: National Democratic Alliance convenor George Fernandes, Coal & Mines Minister Uma Bharti, Heavy Industries Minister Babasaheb Vikhe Patel, Chemicals & Fertiliser Minister Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa, and RSS demagogue S. Gurumurthy are all against disinvestment.

While Fernandes has called for a mid-term review of the process, the others are lobbying for the IPO (initial public offer) route; they are dead against any strategic sell-off. Bharti, for instance, has opposed the sale of a 30 per cent stake in NALCO to a strategic investor.

Shourie seems to have the support of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani, but even that hasn't helped him go ahead with the planned disinvestment of HPCL and BPCL. And while, Finance Minister Jaswant Singh, Commerce Minister Murasoli Maran, and External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha are all for disinvestments, the desire to not offend any members of the coalition could well see the three-month moratorium extend indefinitely, even till 2004, when the next General Elections are due.

The derailing of the disinvestment process was a tragedy (that's what it is) waiting to happen: perhaps frustrated by the lack of response to his efforts within the government, Shourie decided to go public with the ills that plagued the disinvestment process through articles in this magazine and The Indian Express, his former newspaper.

Whispers that Shourie was behind the real-estate and petrol-bunk exposes run by the newspaper have also been doing the rounds of Delhi's power circuit.

The first expose succeeded in embarrassing the now Urban Development Minister Ananth Kumar, and the second stopped just short of indicting the Petroleum Minister Ram Naik.

Shourie's integrity-something even his critics can vouch for-may rule him out as a snitch, but in the end, his clean, crusader image may have worked against him. His colleagues do not seem to like heroes.

-Ashish Gupta

BOX-O
Tollywood's White Knights
An unlikely syndicate could well revive the floundering Bengali film industry.

Arindam Chaudhuri: Now he's into films

What's common to a respected contemporary Bengali poet, a motivational guru, and a little-known director? They all have a part to play in Columbia Tristar's foray into Indian regional language film distribution with Saanjhbathir Roopkathara (Strokes & Silhouettes), soon to be screened at the London film festival. The film marks the entry of self-styled management guru Arindam Chaudhuri into production. Chaudhuri floated an entertainment venture, Planman Life, to co-produce the film. "We want to make meaningful cinema that will touch the lives of people," says Chaudhuri, ''and we turned to literature for it."

Based on a novel by Joy Goswami, one of Bengal's best-known poets, the film explores the relationship between an artist-father and his daughter. But the motive, Chaudhuri maintains, is purely commercial. The Rs 50 lakh budget was divided equally between Planman and Deep Films.

But why did Columbia Tristar choose Saanjhbathir as its entry project? "We saw the film, liked it and decided to distribute it," says CEO Vikramjit Roy. The multinational has a few other projects in the wings, including a Hindi motion PIC directed by Das. Planman has earmarked Rs 50 lakh as its marketing budget for Saanjhbathir-a quantum leap from Rs 2-4 lakh normally spent by Tollywood (the Bengali film industry) on its productions. The film's November release in Kolkata, then, could well see the first real promotional blitz for a Bengali film. About time, too.

-Subhajit Banerjee

GREASE
Crude Joke
Courtesy Uncle Sam, your cost of living may go up in the days to come.

It is something the ailing Indian economy could have done without. Already battered by drought-like conditions in many of the northern states, the country must now brace for a hike in petrol prices. With American and British planes bombing Iraq, crude oil (Brent crude) has gained more than $3 per barrel in just a month. After jumping to $28.95 (Rs 1,418.55) per barrel, prices are now down marginally to $28.48 (Rs 1,395.52), with little chance of any further softening.

That poses a major dilemma for the ruling National Democratic Alliance government-whether to cut excise duty on petrol and diesel and take a hit on revenue inflows or allow the oil marketing companies to hike oil prices further and thereby pass on the burden to the consumer. Incidentally, after the last review meeting between the petroleum ministry and the finance ministry on August 30, the oil companies had raised prices of petrol and diesel by 20 to 31 paisa per litre from September 1.

Most oil companies, however, are still watching the situation. Says Subir Raha, Chairman, ONGC: "It (the US attack on Iraq) would create destabilisation both in prices and supplies, but the exact damage remains to be seen." Adds Sandeep Biswas, Senior Manager, Accenture: "It is only the threat of war that is making the market jittery."

According to ministry sources, if the current price of crude stays in the $24 to $25 a barrel range then there would be no need to hike prices, but if it goes beyond that range then the government will either have to reduce tariffs by 2 per cent or raise the price of petrol and diesel by another 50 paisa per litre.

And that could mean trouble both for the consumers and for the economy.

-Ashish Gupta