The Standing Committee on Finance has flagged the 'crippling' 43% vacancy rate at the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (Dipam) and recommended setting up a task force to ensure early filling of all 38 vacant positions. According to reports from Rediff Moneynews, the committee noted that maintaining only 51 officers against a sanctioned strength of 89 - with critical shortages at the Director (11 vacancies) and Under Secretary (8 vacancies) levels - severely jeopardises the department's ability to execute complex transactions like the IDBI Bank sale or finalise CPSE MoUs. The committee lamented that 'no tangible progress' has been made in resolving vacancies at Dipam since their March report, emphasizing that for a department overseeing a public asset portfolio exceeding ₹42.76 lakh crore, routine administrative correspondence is grossly inadequate.
The committee expressed deep concern that Dipam, despite overseeing an ambitious value maximisation agenda, has been allocated a modest budget of ₹55.92 crore and is operating with the significant manpower shortages. As reported by Rediff Moneynews, such significant shortages in a field requiring highly specialised financial and legal expertise undermine the department's capacity to effectively manage the disinvestment target and the recycling of prime real estate assets. The department oversees a public asset portfolio exceeding ₹42.76 lakh crore, making routine administrative correspondence grossly inadequate for the scale of operations required.
In their action-taken reply, the finance ministry stated that Dipam has been pursuing the matter with concerned departments on priority. According to Rediff Moneynews, the ministry said the matter of filling vacancies of ASOs (Assistant Section Officer), SOs (Section Officer), Under Secretaries, and Assistant Directors was taken up with the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), Department of Expenditure, and Department of Economic Affairs. The committee urged the Ministry of Finance to pursue the matter on priority through a dedicated inter-departmental task force with DoPT and DoE to ensure early filling up of all 38 vacant positions.
The committee recommended that Dipam must finalise a clear legal strategy incorporating 'Golden Share' or indirect control models to safeguard strategic autonomy in entities where state shareholding may drop below 51%. As reported by Rediff Moneynews, the committee considers this reactive stance insufficient for complex, modern capital markets and re-emphised the need to establish benchmarked governance standards by proactively codifying a legal architecture to permanently safeguard the government's strategic oversight and national security interests in vital CPSEs whenever public equity dilution below 51% occurs in the future. The ministry informed that there is no proposal at present to reduce Government of India stake below 51% in CPSEs except in those cases wherein strategic disinvestment is being pursued as per the approval of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA).
The ministry has informed the Standing Committee that work is currently underway to develop a calibrated roadmap for the establishment of CPSE REITs. According to Rediff Moneynews, the committee recommended that the forthcoming roadmap rigorously integrate a standardised, independent expert-led valuation framework to ensure that market volatility does not result in the undervaluation or distress sale of strategic national real estate assets. The committee was chaired by Bhartruhar Mahtab and tabled its report in Parliament in March, with the current action-taken report highlighting the urgent need for comprehensive reforms in Dipam's operational structure.
