PSU stake sale: FinMin hopes to raise Rs 13K cr

The Finance Ministry is hopeful of raising Rs 12,000-13,000 crore (Rs 120-130 billion) from stake sale in the public sector undertakings by December-end which could help the government to rein in fiscal deficit to around 5.3 per cent of the gross domestic product in 2012-13.

"We are hopeful that disinvestment will pick up and about Rs 12,000-Rs 13,000 crore will come in by December.

"For the full fiscal we expect to raise Rs 30,000 crore (Rs 300 billion)," Department of Economic Affairs secretary Arvind Mayaram told PTI in an interview.

Finance Ministry officials are engaging in hectic parleys with the PSUs to speed up the process so that the disinvestments can take place in the December and March quarters.

The Department of Disinvestment, the modal department for conducting PSU stake sale, has already secured Cabinet approval for stake sale in four companies -- Oil India, MMTC, Hindustan Copper and Nalco -- which could fetch about Rs 15,000 crore (Rs 150 billion)

to the exchequer.

"We have target a fiscal deficit at 5.3 per cent for the current fiscal. We aim to bring it down to 3 per cent by 2016-17," Mayaram said, ruling out any further borrowing by the government.

"We will control the deficit by reducing our expenditure and realising funds from PSU disinvestment," he said.

Although the government had pegged fiscal deficit for the current financial year at 5.1 per cent in the budget, it will not be able to achieve the target in view of rising subsidy bill and lower buoyancy in tax collection.

With nearly seven months of the fiscal about to get over, the government is yet to start its disinvestment programme, through which it aims to raise Rs 30,000 crore (Rs 300 billion) in 2012-13.