Severe 43% Staff Shortage in DIPAM: Panel Recommends Task Force

The Standing Committee on Finance has expressed deep concern over the chronic staff shortage in the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM), flagging a 43% vacancy rate that it says is crippling the department's ability to manage a public asset portfolio exceeding ₹42.76 lakh crore. In its latest action-taken report, the panel has recommended the formation of a dedicated inter-departmental task force to expedite the filling of all 38 vacant positions.

The committee noted that DIPAM has a sanctioned strength of 89 officers but currently operates with only 51. Critical shortages exist at the Director level, with 11 vacancies, and at the Under Secretary level, with 8 vacancies. The panel lamented that no tangible progress has been made since its earlier report in March, and that routine administrative correspondence with other departments is grossly inadequate for a department handling complex transactions such as the IDBI Bank sale and finalising CPSE MoUs.

Such manpower shortages, the committee argued, directly undermine DIPAM's capacity to execute strategic disinvestment targets and manage the recycling of prime real estate assets. The department requires highly specialised financial and legal expertise, and the vacancies severely jeopardise its operational effectiveness.

In response, the finance ministry stated that DIPAM has been pursuing the matter with the concerned departments on priority. It said that the issue of filling vacancies for Assistant Section Officers, Section Officers, Under Secretaries, and Assistant Directors has been taken up with the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), the Department of Expenditure, and the Department of Economic Affairs.

The committee viewed with concern that despite overseeing an ambitious value maximisation agenda, DIPAM has been allocated a modest budget of ₹55.92 crore. It urged the Ministry of Finance to pursue the matter through a dedicated task force involving the DoPT and the Department of Expenditure to ensure early filling of all vacant posts.

Beyond staffing, the committee also drew attention to broader governance issues. In its March report, it had urged DIPAM to formulate a calibrated roadmap for the rollout of InvITs (Infrastructure Investment Trusts) and REITs (Real Estate Investment Trusts), supported by robust valuation safeguards and a transparent oversight mechanism. It had recommended that DIPAM finalise a clear legal strategy, incorporating models like 'Golden Share' or indirect control, to protect strategic autonomy in entities where government shareholding might fall below 51%.

The finance ministry responded that there is currently no proposal to reduce the Government of India's stake below 51% in central public sector enterprises (CPSEs), except in cases where strategic disinvestment has been approved by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA).

The committee, however, deemed this reactive stance insufficient for complex modern capital markets. It re-emphasised the need to proactively codify a legal architecture that would permanently safeguard the government's strategic oversight and national security interests in vital CPSEs, should public equity dilution below 51% occur in the future.

The ministry also informed the committee, chaired by Bhartruhar Mahtab, that work is underway to develop a calibrated roadmap for establishing CPSE REITs. The committee recommended that this roadmap rigorously integrate a standardised, independent expert-led valuation framework. This would ensure that market volatility does not lead to the undervaluation or distress sale of strategic national real estate assets.