Morgan Stanley and Jardine Fleming, the two global coordinators for disinvestment of upto 180 million government shares in GAIL, are expected to submit their reports on market conditions shortly. Ministry sources indicated that a decision to hit the market would be taken on the basis of the recommendations of the global coordinators in the next few weeks.

The cabinet had earlier cleared disinvestment of upto 210 million shares, representing 25 per cent equity, in the Navratna Gas Company and accordingly GAIL had hit the domestic market late in 1998-99 to sell about 30 million shares to mop up about Rs 180 crore.

No dates for meeting of the task force on disinvestment of Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) has been fixed as yet, but theministry officials did not rule out the possibility of convening the meeting in the near future.

Devi Dayal, who was heading the IOC task force as additional secretary in the ministry of petroleum was earlier this week shifted to the cabinet secretariat in the rank of secretary. A decision for convening the meeting was likely to be taken only after his successor is appointed, sources said.

The government has targeted to mop-up Rs 10,000 crore through disinvestment in the current fiscal and this included among others divestment in GAIL, IOC, Container Corporation (CONCOR) and Indian Petrochemcials (IPCL).

The disinvestment in IOC was held last fiscal due to adverse market conditions, while GAIL had in 1998-99 gone ahead to divest a small per cent of government holdings in the domestic market through private placement with financial institutions and banks.

GAIL has a paid-up capital of Rs 845 crore and its authorised capital stands at Rs 1000 crore. While government holds 93 per cent stake in thecompany, GAIL is also in the process of completing cross-holding pattern with two other PSU oil companies IOC and ONGC.

According to the cross-holding pattern, GAIL would part with five per cent each of government holding to the two oil companies. With this, government holding would come down to 83 per cent in GAIL.