CMC: India sold 51% of its pioneering IT firm to Tata for Rs 152 crore in 2001

CMC Ltd, incorporated in 1975 as a wholly government-owned company, was once the biggest player in Indian IT: it maintained the mainframes IBM left behind, built railway reservation and power-distribution systems, made probably the first cross-border acquisition by an Indian IT firm in 1991, and was already a Rs 100-crore company by then. It listed on the BSE in 1993.

In 2001 the Vajpayee government, driving an aggressive disinvestment programme, put 51% of CMC up for strategic sale. One by one the interested bidders pulled out until only Tata Sons remained; it bought the controlling stake for Rs 152 crore. The government sold its remaining 26.5% to the public in 2004.

Under Tata ownership CMC was run inside the TCS orbit rather than as a policy instrument, and in October 2014 its board agreed to merge the company into Tata Consultancy Services — quietly closing the loop on one of India's earliest and smoothest IT privatisations.

Rs 152 crore for 51% in 2001; the state exited fully in 2004; CMC merged into TCS from 2015

CMC's government lineage tied it to public-sector work just as private IT exports boomed.

After the BALCO and Air India sale fiascos, a clean single-bidder close was a huge relief for Delhi.

Tata could fold CMC's government contracts and engineers into TCS's export machine.

Majority-first sequencing built the trust that made the 2004 full exit possible.

A strategic sale to one credible owner beats minority dribbles: control transfers accountability, and a clean full exit becomes possible.

CMC operated under Tata control until its 2014 board decision to merge into Tata Consultancy Services folded it fully into the group. The smooth CMC transaction — contrasted with the chaos around BALCO and Air India — became the proof of concept for India's strategic-sale model, later reused from VSNL onward.