The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) has given in-principle approval to the demerger of Nagarnar Steel Plant (NSP) from the National Minerals Development Corporation (NMDC) and strategic disinvestment of NSP by selling the entire government of India stake in it to a strategic buyer.
NSP is a three million tpa integrated steel plant being set up by NMDC at Nagarnar in Bastar district of Chhattisgarh over 1,980 acre at revised estimated cost of Rs 23,140 crore, as on 14 July 2020.
As on 14 October 2020, NMDC has invested Rs 17,186 crore on the project out of which Rs 16,662 crore is from NMDC’s own funds and Rs 524 crore has been raised from bond market. With the approval, CCEA has amended its earlier decision taken on 27 October 2016 to disinvest Nagarnar Steel Plant as a unit of NMDC.
The proposal to demerge NSP into a separate company before its disinvestment has advantages such as, NMDC can focus on its core activities of mining; NSP will be a separate company and the managements of NMDC and NSP will be accountable for their respective operations and financial performance.
The shareholders of NMDC will also be shareholders of the demerged company (NSP) in the proportion of their shareholding. Also, after the demerger, investors will have better visibility of the operations and cash flow of NMDC and NSP separately. The demerger will also be tax neutral from the point of view of capital gains.
CCEA has taken note that the process of demerger and disinvestment will be initiated in parallel and disinvestment of the demerged company (NSP) is expected to be completed by September 2021.