According to official sources, the committee has held several rounds of meetings with senior SMC executives who had come from Japan. One of the representatives was SMC chairman O Suzuki's nephew.

The committee has apprised SMC of the government's position. The meetings were "held in a cordial atmosphere."

The committee of secretaries was supposed to meet on Thursday, but the meeting was postponed to Friday. Even on Friday, the meeting could not be held, as the Department of Disinvestment (DoD) felt that the final response from SMC should be taken into account before preparing its recommendations.

Officials were confident that they would be able to complete their work before the next meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Disinvestment (CCD) on December 23.The CCD, at its last meeting on November 18, had decided to set up a committee of secretaries to look into optimal ways of MUL divestment.

The committee comprises the secretaries of the DoD, the department of expenditure and the ministry of heavy industries & public enterprises. The committee meetings are being held under the guidance of cabinet secretary TR Prasad. In the case of MUL divestment, consent of Suzuki Motor becomes mandatory because MUL is a joint venture, with the Government of India and SMC being equal partners holding about 49 per cent equity each. There is a clause in the contract between the two that no party can sell its stake to a third party without the express consent of the other. The committee of secretaries has examined various possibilities, the most obvious is the sale of government equity in MUL to SMC. The committee is, however, against the sale of entire government equity. Due to the pressure of ministry of heavy industries & public enterprise, which is the administrative ministry for MUL, the committee is likely to give a certain percentage of share to employees at a discount.

Offloading of some equity in favour of public and financial institutions is also expected. The government has also not ruled out the possibility of buying the entire stake of SMC in MUL, and then selling the company to a strategic partner.