The government on Wednesday asked the authorities concerned to offload, within three weeks, 30 per cent shares of Jamuna Oil Company and Meghna Petroleum Ltd and 1,20,000 government-owned shares in the IFIC bank.

An inter-ministry meeting, headed by finance adviser Mirza Azizul Islam, also directed the Dhaka Electric Supply Company and Power Grid Company of Bangladesh to offload 15 per cent more of their shares by March. Both the companies have so far offloaded 25 per cent of their shares through the capital market.

The meeting, which discussed offloading of the shares of state-run power and gas companies and IFIC bank, also asked Titas Gas Transmission and Distribution Company to offload 25 per cent of its shares by March.

It also asked Bangladesh Gas Fields Company Ltd and Gas Transmission Company to offload some shares by June, and Bakhrabad Gas Systems Ltd by September. The amount of the shares that will be offloaded initially will be decided later.

The state-run oil marketing companies, Jamuna and Meghna, were supposed to offload 30 per cent of their shares, worth Tk 13.5 crore and Tk 12 crore respectively, by November but the process has been delayed as the companies are yet to submit the required documents. The meeting was told that they would be ready to offload shares by the middle of December. The Investment Corporation of Bangladesh’s officials told the meeting that the paperwork for offloading 1,20,000 government shares in the IFIC bank were almost complete and the shares would be offloaded by the middle of December. The government owns 35 per cent of IFIC bank.

Regarding offloading 15 per cent additional shares of Power Grid Company, power officials advised the government not to offload any more shares as it would not be strategically sound for the major electricity transmission company to do so.

Power officials said that the PGCB holds the key to the national electricity grid and the government should control 75 per cent of its shares as the grid is very important, which was proved in the aftermath of Sidr when country went without electricity for a whole day.

Mirza Azizul and power and energy adviser Tapan Chowdhury, however, brushed aside their advice and said that participation of private investors would boost the power sector.

The meeting also discussed the offloading of the shares of Rural Power Company Ltd, Electricity Generation Company of Bangladesh and Ashuganj Power Station Company but decided that those companies were not ready to offload shares at present.