New Delhi, Jan 13 (IANS) With the sell off target of Rs 1.05 lakh crore increasingly looking difficult to achieve, the Disinvestment department is learnt to have drawn up a list of relatively better performing CPSEs including bluechips like Nalco, NMDC, NTPC, and Coal India to go for Offer for Sale.
National Aluminium Co Ltd, Coal India Ltd, NTPC Ltd, NMDC Ltd, and NBCC (India) Ltd, Bharat Electronics Ltd, National Fertilisers Ltd and Hindustan Copper Ltd, are on the list of probables for OFS where the government’s shareholding in these companies is in the range of 52-82 per cent. The market offering will be subject to the nod from the Prime Minister’s Office and good market conditions to fetch high value of stake sale, said sources.
The planned sale of Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd and Air India is unlikely to happen in the current financial year ending March. These two big ticket sell-off derailments caused a Rs 87,000 crore gap as of now in the target of the government.
Sources however said even in the best possible scenario only one OFS could take place. The Cabinet had in 2017 approved disinvestment of 10 per cent stake in NTPC, of which 6.75 per cent was sold earlier.
In the Union Budget, the government had announced a proposal to cut its stake in some state-owned companies to below 51 per cent on a case-by-case basis.
In November 2018, the offer for sale (OFS) in Coal India by the government which sought to reduce its ownership by 3 per cent, was fully subscribed with both institutional and retail buyers putting in robust bids in the divestment fetching the Centre about Rs 5,000 crore.
–IANS
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