The minister told members of Parliament (MPs), who had apprehensions about the Disinvestment Commission's recommendations that the Centre divest a part of its shareholding in Nalco, that the Centre would continue to retain a controlling stake in the company.

According to an official release, the minister also said an inquiry committee would probe into the drop in Nalco's output, following snags in the operation of its smelter.

The panel is expected to submit its report by the end of the month. Nalco had to shut down some ``pots'' in its aluminium smelter at Angul since January this year. Patnaik said most of the six public sector undertaking (PSUs) under the administrative control of the mines ministry had performed well last year and efforts were on to ``improve the working'' of theloss-making ones.

The National Aluminium Company earned a profit of Rs 550.85 crore last year. The Bharat Aluminium Company posted a profit of Rs 87 crore and Hindustan Zinc Ltd made a gain of Rs 201 crore.

Hindustan Copper Ltd has made losses in the last two years because of the slump in copper prices on the London Metal Exchange (LME) and the simultaneous trimming of customs duties at home, Patnaik said. Copper is usually on a level-playing field with imported metal, since the domestic price of the red metal is pegged to the LME price, plus import tariffs.

The Mineral Exploration Corporation Ltd has been suffering losses since 1990-91, primarily because of lack of orders. The minister informed the panel that a revival plan of the company was being implemented.

The other loss-making mining PSU, the Bharat Gold Mines Ltd (BGML) is under the wings of the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction (BIFR). The minister said, "the future of BGML will be decided as per the provisions of the SickIndustrial Companies (Special Provisions) Act, 1985.''

He said between November 1995 and July this year, the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) had approved 48 proposals worth Rs 3095 crore. The Lok Sabha members who attended the meeting included Upendranath Nayak, Tarachand Sahu, K K Choudhary, Shakeel Ahmed, A Sai Pratap, R C Mallick, Bherulal Meena, P N Behera, M Thiyagarajan, Sunil Khan and Rita Verma.

The Rajya Sabha members attached to the consultative committee on steel and mines include Janardan Yadav, Ananta Sethi and Gaya Singh.