This comes even as they and certain economists view that the proceeds of the same should go for the restructuring of public sector undertakings and not merely to raise revenue.

"Divestment programme should be quickened," was the reply from CII to a questionnaire sent by PTI.

Similarly, the other industry chambers like FICCI and Assocham have said the divestment programme should be speeded up.

FICCI said the proceeds should go to a fund dedicated to socio-economic development of rural India and that in all the non-strategic profitable companies, divestment should be up to 74 per cent and 49 per cent in the case of strategic companies.

Assocham said it would welcome any move to increase the divestment target and offloading the government's equity in state-owned enterprises, particularly the profitable ones, adding it would be one of the ways to help the Centre to rein in the revenue deficit.

Finding that divestment was "tricky and politically sensitive issue", the National Council for Applied Economic Research said divestment should be quickened and widened but there should be a negative list and for the rest of the companies, the IPO route should be selected.

Another economic think-tank, the Institute of Economic Growth, said divestment should be used for restructuring of public enterprises and "not for revenue realisation".

Opposing the current divestment programme, which according to IEG was revenue realisation centric, it said the government should sell loss-making and non-merit good PSEs and bring back capital to improve infrastructure and technology in the existing public sector enterprises.

The current stream of divestment was "not improving the public enterprise, as a result, lucrative PSEs were sold to the private hands and loss making ones remained with the government," it said.

Credit rating agency ICRA said over the years, the divestment proceeds had been used by the government to cover the revenue-expenditure mismatches and to that extent, the divestment of government enterprises may be necessary in reducing the fiscal gap.

The National Institute of Public Finance and Policy said most enterprises where the government does not have a legitimate role should be privatised and in case of others significant divestment should be made to enhance public accountability and competition.