"There's no deadline (for closing down), but 1999 is too far away. I think it should happen earlier than that. They could be closed down by the end of the year. I hope so and I think so," Bakht told a private television channel.

Without naming the state-run units, Bakht said the government was creating a situation where non-revivable units would be done away with, a statement from the private television channel said.

"We have to go through the proper process. BIFR has already made recommendations. They will be taken up by the High Court and after that they will go to a group of secretaries, the core group. So we can't rush things," the minister said. On the government's commitment to disinvest 74 per cent of its equity in non-strategic state-run units, Bakht said the main concern in this area was theslump in the international markets.

"We shall have to make up our mind whether it is the right time to disinvest. It will have to be judged on the basis of what is the best price that we can get for what we are going to disinvest," Bakht said.

He said government would not be disinvesting in any unit other than the four mentioned in the budget - Container Corporation (Concor), Gail, VSNL and IOC. About the disinvestment commission, Bakht said the government was sorting out the confusion over its working. The group of secretaries had taken over most of the functions of disinvestment, he said.

The efficiency of the government keeps on getting blurred, as we increase the area of our functions. Definitely the government with smaller areas of functioning will be more efficient.

Meanwhile in a separate statement made the minister has said sugar industry is all set to be delicensed with the Union cabinet expected to take a decision on the issue this month. "We are proposing to delicense sugar. I think may beat the next cabinet meeting. Certainly very soon. It is very possible sugar will be delicensed in August itself," he said. After delicensing of sugar, practically only five areas would be under license control as they were important from the view of defence and country's security, he said.

A decision on sugar delicensing had been deferred by the cabinet last month in order to arrive at a consensus on the issue. The food ministry has told the cabinet that it has no objection to delicensing provided no two sugar or khandsari units are commissioned within a radius of 25 km. Earlier a proposal by the industry ministry to dereserve 200 to 300 of the 800 items reserved in the small scale sector had been rejected by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, he said.