By IANS,
New Delhi : The government aims at raising Rs.40,000 crore (Rs.400 billion/$9 billion) by selling its stake in public sector undertakings in 2011-12, despite missing the current year’s target, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said Monday.
“I intend to maintain the momentum on disinvestment in 2011-12 by raising Rs.40,000 crore,” Mukherjee said while presenting the budget for 2011-12 in the Lok Sabha.
However, the finance minister said disinvestment would fall substantially short of the target in the current financial year. For the current fiscal, the government had also set a disinvestment target of Rs.40,000 crore but has been able to raise just above half the amount so far.
“As against a target of Rs.40,000 crore, the government will raise about Rs.22,144 crore from disinvestment in 2010-11. A higher than anticipated realisation in non-tax revenues has led us to reschedule some of the divestment issues planned for the current year,” he said.
The Rs.22,144 crore that has been raised has been through selling the government’s stake in different state-run companies including Coal India, Power Grid Corporation of India, Satluj Jal Vidyut Nigam, Engineers India Ltd, Shipping Corporation of India and Manganese Ore India Ltd.
Mukherjee said the government was committed to retaining at least 51 percent ownership and management control of the central public sector undertakings.