CCEA approved Creation of the Special National Investment Fund

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) on 2 August 2013 approved the creation of the Special National Investment Fund with the specific objective of meeting the minimum public shareholding of 10 percent requirement in the six Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs).

The CPSEs include
• Andrew Yule & Company Ltd.
• Fertilizers & Chemicals (Travancore) Ltd.
• Scooters India Ltd.
• HMT Ltd.
• Hindustan Photo Films Manufacturing Co. Ltd.
• ITI Ltd.

Salient features of the Special National Investment Fund are
• Under the provision of the Fund, the number of shares that is required to make the six Companies compliant with the minimum public shareholding will be transferred to the Special National Investment Fund out of Government of India shareholding on irrevocable basis without any consideration
• Independent professional Fund Managers will be responsible towards managing the fund
• The shares of the six CPSEs would be sold by the Fund within a period of five years
• The funds generated from the sale of the shares would be used for social sector schemes of the Government
• The modalities of the sale of shares in the Fund would be decided by the existing EGoM

Vide Securities Contracts, (Regulations) (Second Amendment) Rules, 2010 dated 9 August 2010 all the Government Companies are required to have at least 10 percent public shareholding and where public shareholding is less than 10 percent, the Companies were required to comply with this condition within a period of 3 years by following methods permitted by SEBI for this purpose