The meeting, to be attended by senior officials of departments of economic affairs, telecom and public enterprises, will be chaired by Brajesh Mishra, principal secretary to the prime minister, sources in the department of telecom said.

The government proposes to disinvest 10 million shares in the international market. About a million shares may be disinvested in the domestic retail market also.

Sources said that the meeting will assess the potential of VSNL's GDR issue in the wake of economic sanctions imposed by the US and certain other countries.

It will also take up the concerns expressed by foreign investors who had participated in the company's first GDR issue in March 1997. These concerns emanate from the statements made in the offer document of the GDR. Some of theissues raised by the investors at the time of the last GDR issue was settlement of total accounting rates (TAR) with foreign carriers, allotment of shares to employees and reconstitution of the company's board of directors.

The previous GDR issue involved sale of 2.83 million shares at a premium of Rs 990 per share. The issue was oversubscribed 10 times and garnered $448 million, making it the country's largest and Asia's (excluding Japan) third largest equity issue at that time.

VSNL may become the first of the four `navratna' public sector undertakings (PSUs) slated for disinvestment programme during the current financial year. The government has set a target of mopping up Rs 5000 crore from disinvestment in public sector undertaking during 1998-99.

VSNL's disinvestment programme is proposed to be implemented by inter-ministerial group which has already been set up by the department of telecom in accordance with the guidelines of the department of economic affairs. Besides two senior officials ofdepartment of telecom as well as the chairman of VSNL, the other members of the inter-ministerial group will be from the department of economic affairs and department of public enterprises.

If the disinvestment goes through as envisages, the government's equity holding in the company will go down to 59 per cent from the present 65 per cent. The present paid up capital of VSNL is Rs 95 crore.