Fin-Min approves Navratna status to RVNL
NEW DELHI : Finance Minister Smt Nirmala Sitharaman has approved the upgradation of RVNL( Rail Vikas Nigam Limited) to Navratna CPSE. RVNL will be the 13th Navratna amongst the CPSEs,” Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) said in a tweet. RVNL is a Ministry of Railways CPSE with an annual turnover of ₹19,381 crores and net profit of ₹1,087 crores for the years 2021-22. Rail Vikas Nigam Limited (RVNL) has now been promoted to ‘Navratna’ category of Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSE) from Category-I Miniratna. This means the company will have more autonomy in terms of investment, setting up joint venture and other financial decisions.
RVNL’s Director of Operations Rajesh Prasad had earlier told that the company’s order book was projected to reach between Rs 75,000 crore and Rs 1 lakh crore in FY24, with 20 percent of the orders being obtained through bidding.
As per the criteria laid down by the Government, Miniratna Category – I and Schedule I A CPSEs, which have obtained ‘excellent’ or ‘very good’ rating under the Memorandum of Understanding system in three of the last five years, and have a composite score of 60 or above in the six selected performance parameters are eligible to be considered for grant of Navratna status. These criteria include, net profit to net worth, manpower cost to total cost of production/services, profit before depreciation, interest and taxes to capital employed, profit before interest and taxes to turnover, earning per share and inter-sectoral performance.
The announcement was made after market hour. During the day share prices of the company surged to 52 week high of ₹114.62. However, soon profit booking started and finally shares closed at ₹104.60 on BSE. This was 0.18 per cent lower than closing price of Monday.
The company was set up during the Vajpayee government. To bridge the infrastructure deficit on Indian Railways, the then Prime Minister, late Atal Bihari Vajpayee announced National Rail Vikas Yojana (NRVY) on August 15, 2002. The scheme was was formally launched on December 26 2002. To implement NRVY, RVNL was incorporated as an 100 per cent-owned PSU of Railway Ministry on January 24 2003 with the twin objectives of raising extra-budgetary resources and implementation of projects relating to creation and augmentation of capacity of rail infrastructure on fast track basis. RVNL became fully functional by March 2005.