Divestment Minister Arun Shourie on Monday said he has not made any proposal to sell Indian Oil Corporation's 4,800 petrol pumps to Hindustan Petroleum and Bharat Petroleum as part of efforts to divest IOC's retail marketing outlets.
There were reports that his ministry had proposed to divest retail outlets of India's only Fortune 500 company.
The reports said the petroleum ministry was working on a Cabinet note for selling government's 20 per cent equity in IOC in the capital market to fetch about Rs 8,000 crore as an alternate to the proposed hiving off IOC's retail business.
It may be noted that after the meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Divestment on Friday last, Shourie had said that one of the options being considered by the government was to split IOC into two or three and divest retail business of the oil giant.