New Delhi: The government's divestment process on September 7 suffered a major setback with the Cabinet Committee on Disinvestment putting on hold for three months a decision on privatising Hindustan Petroleum and Bharat Petroleum in the wake of overwhelming opposition within the government.

"The decision on HPCL and BPCL has been deferred for three months. Even minority sale of equity in IOC, ONGC and GAIL has been deferred to take a complete view," Disinvestment Minister Arun Shourie told reporters after the CCD meeting, chaired by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.

Indications that the controversial privatisation move would not take off were available earlier in the day when an informal meeting of key ministers held by Vajpayee failed to evolve a consensus and the Prime Minister suggesting that the process be held back for three months.

Shourie, a strong votary of immediate disinvestment in the oil sector, confirmed that such a decision was taken at the earlier meeting. With this the disinvestment target of Rs 12,000 crore was unlikely to be met during the current fiscal, he said.

He, however, declined to give reasons for postponing a decision and refused to answer questions on the opposition from other ministers, including George Fernandes, Uma Bharati, S S Dhindsa and Ram Naik.

In a related significant move, the CCD decided to bar PSUs and co-operatives where government had more than 51 per cent equity from bidding for the companies put on the block.

"In case of an exception the concerned ministry will have to take the Cabinet's clearance to allow a particular PSU to participate in bids," he added.

PTI