NEW DELHI, Feb 3
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in an interview with a news channel said the government is open to the idea of disinvestment of equity stake in blue-chip PSUs, including State Bank of India (SBI) and Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC).
The minister further said the government is not against the idea of holding a minority stake in key strategic public sector companies.
Notably, the government currently holds a controlling 57.49% stake in SBI and 58.89% stake in ONGC.
“You will see periodically, DIPAM, the department which takes care of the disinvestment has slowly released a lot of government’s shares into the market so that private ownerships can come in and they can take hold of those shares,” she said.
She highlighted that the government was all in for those steps that raise the valuation of PSUs.
Brokerages like Elara Nomura India and Elara Securities expected a modest disinvestment target Rs 40,000 crore, which would be 0.1% of GDP, compared with the overly ambitious target for this year.
Brokerages such as Jefferies believe disinvestments may also a boost post elections, partly as the government capitalises on the sharp run in PSU stocks in sectors such as railways, defence etc.
The companies where offer for sale (OFS) was successfully completed this financial year so far have been Coal India, Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd, SJVN Ltd, IRCON International Ltd and IREDA Ltd. The offer for sale for NHPC Ltd has been announced.
Further, the brokerage PhilipCapital had said since strategic disinvestment would likely be more successful post general elections, it is assuming Rs 50,000 crore in divestments for FY25. It is expecting disinvestments for FY24 to come in a Rs 20,000 crore.
