Govt will meet Rs 40,000 cr disinvestment goal: Gopalan

Unfazed by current volatility in stock markets, finance ministry today said the government will be able to raise Rs 40,000 crore from sale of equity in state-owned companies this fiscal.

"We hope that we would be able to meet the disinvestment target," Department of Economic Affairs Secretary R Gopalan told reporters on the sidelines of a CII event.

So far in the current fiscal, the government has been able to mop up just over Rs 1,100 crore by offloading stake in Power Finance Corporation (PFC), as against the target of Rs 40,000 crore by March end.

Over the past few months, the stock markets have been going through rough a patch on account of the global economic downturn as well as a host of domestic concerns including high inflation and rising interest rates.

The BSE benchmark index, Sensex, tumbled 2.17% yesterday to close at 16,501 points after the latest data showed that the industrial production growth fell to 21-month low of 3.3%.

Last fiscal, the government had raised Rs 22,763 crore from sale of equity in public sector enterprises, as against a target of Rs 40,000 crore. It offloaded equity in SJVN, Engineers India, Coal India, Power Grid and Shipping Corporation of India.

The government has already approved disinvestment in ONGC, SAIL, Hindustan Copper (HCL) and National Building and Construction Corporation (NBCC).

However, volatile stock markets have forced it to delay the formal process of selling stake in the PSUs, even as almost six months of the current fiscal are over.

Gopalan also said that a meeting would be held later this month to look at the issue of raising the limit on External Commercial Borrowing by companies.

"There is a meeting (to review ECB limit) at the end of the month," he said.

The high-level coordination committee (HLC) on commercial borrowings is likely to raise the overall limit of External Commercial Borrowings (ECBs) from $30 billion currently at its meeting on September 15.

Hike in overall ECB limit, which was last increased in May, will help corporates to borrow more funds from overseas markets.