Govt Mulls FDI Policy Tweak To Facilitate BPCL Privatisation By Allowing Overseas Investors To Pick A Majority Stake

In a bid to ease up the path for privatisation of the state-owned Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL), the government is said to be considering a tweak in the foreign direct investment (FDI) policy to allow overseas investors to pick up a majority stake in the oil refining major, reports Economic Times.

The proposal for FDI Tweak is presently said to be under discussion among the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM), Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIIT) and the Department of Economic Affairs (DEA).

At present, only 49 per cent of FDI is permitted through the automatic route in petroleum refining by state-owned enterprises. Thus, as per the present norms, a foreign player would not be able to buy more than a 49 per cent stake in BPCL. In this light, DIPAM is said to have suggested to amend the policy and allow 100 per cent FDI in the Central PSEs.

The government has received three expressions of interest (EOIs) for its entire 52.98 per cent stake in BPCL. While one of the interested parties is metals-to-mining tycoon Anil Agarwal led Vedanta, the other two parties are both said to be global funds including Apollo Global Management.