Govt to invest Rs 25k cr in PSUs via equity

The government may have a paltry disinvestment target of Rs 1,120 crore, but it has committed to pumping in Rs 25,546 crore as equity in public sector entities during the current financial year.     

Indian Railways and the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) alone would account for over 90 per cent of the total equity investment by the Centre. The government would pump in Rs 14,600 crore in the Railways to part-finance the Plan investment of Rs 39,545 crore.     

More than half of the investment of Rs 13,646 crore for NHAI would also come from the government equity at Rs 8,578 crore.      

The metro rail projects in Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata and Chennai would also get close to Rs 800 crore for part- financing the estimated investment of around Rs 3,750 crore.      

Other beneficiaries would include National Minorities Development and Finance Corp, whose entire Plan outlay of Rs 125 crore for the year would come through this route.     

On the other hand, the government is targetting to mop up close to Rs 50,000 crore by way of dividend from PSUs, PSEs and other investments as also RBI, national banks and financial institutions.

Last year, the slowdown appears to have impacted the government-owned entities also as dividend from this segment at Rs 39,736 crore was about Rs 4,000 crore less than what was targetted in the Budget for 2008-09.