sentences:  Initially set up as an independent ministry (The Ministry of Disinvestment) in December 1999, the Department of Disinvestments came into existence in May 2004 when the ministry was turned into a department of the Ministry of Finance.The department took up all the functions of the erstwhile ministry which broadly was responsible for a systematic policy approach to disinvestment and privatisation of Public Sector Units (PSUs).Tuhin Kanta Pandey is the current secretary of this department.