Government to give final touch to its Rs 40,000 crore divestment plan

23 May 2011 Evaluate

The Indian government is expected to give final touch to the plan of raising a gigantic Rs 40,000 crore through disinvestment during the present fiscal year. It will include sale of equity in blue chip companies like SAIL, ONGC and HCL. As per the disinvestment policy of government, the government has to retain majority shareholding of at least 51 % and management control of the PSUs.

The Department of Disinvestment of Disinvestment additional secretary Siddharth Pradhan said, 'Cabinet has so far given approval for the disinvestment of four state-run firms - PFC, SAIL, ONGC and HCL. We are in talks with various ministries and working on a roadmap that should be finalized by June-end”. Exuding assurance that the DoD would be able to attain the Rs 40,000 crore goal for the current fiscal, he said by way of share sales of the identified four PSUs through follow-on offers, a little over Rs 15,000 crore was expected to be garnered.

Indian government has already raised Rs 1,162 crore by disinvesting 5% stake in Power Finance Corporation (PFC) in May 2011. The SAIL’s public offer is expected to hit the market by next month and ONGC in July and share sale programme of Hindustan Copper (HCL) is yet to take concrete shape. According to Pradhan, the DoD was in touch with Steel, Mines, Heavy Industries and Petroleum & amp; Natural Gas Ministries for identifying the companies for disinvestment. The government has by now identified RINL, MMTC and NBCC for stake sale and would be essential to add more companies to the list to achieve Rs 40,000 crore target during 2011-12.

Earlier government had proposed a disinvestment goal of Rs 95,000 crore from sale of shares in the public sector companies over the next 3 financial years, including Rs 40,000 crore in the present fiscal year. According to the data, at present the total revenue stands at Rs 99,738.92 crore from the government's different disinvestment programmes, ever since they begun in the financial year 1991-92.

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