Govt gets Rs 10,000 cr from additional offering of Bharat-22 ETF

The government has raised Rs 10,000 crore by additional offering of Bharat-22 Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) on Thursday.

The additional 'on-tap' offering of Bharat-22 ETF was opened for a single day with a base issue size of Rs 3,500 crore and an option to retain over-subscription.

The issue was over-subscribed 10 times and received bids for Rs 4,00,000 crore till 7pm. Bids will pour in till 8pm, the Finance Ministry said.

"The Bharat-22 ETF issue received overwhelming response from all categories of investors including retail investors. The Government has decided to retain approximately Rs 10,000 crore as its divestment proceeds," the ministry said in a statement.

The proceeds from the ETF sale would help the government move towards meeting the Rs 80,000 crore disinvestment target set for the current fiscal.

With the successful Bharat-22 ETF offering, the government has mopped up approximately Rs 46,000 crore by way of disinvestment.

The government has so far raised Rs 22,900 crore through the Bharat-22 ETF. While Rs 14,500 crore was raised in November 2017, another Rs 8,400 crore was raised in June 2018.

The central public sector enterprises (CPSEs) that are part of the ETF include ONGC, IOC, SBI, BPCL, Coal India and Nalco.

Other constituents include Bharat Electronics, Engineers India, NBCC, NTPC, NHPC, SJVNL, GAIL, PGCIL and NLC India. Only three public sector banks -- SBI, Indian Bank and Bank of Baroda -- figure in the Bharat-22 index.

Also, the government's strategic holding in Axis Bank, ITC and L&T, held through Specified Undertaking of Unit Trust of India (SUUTI), has been put in the ETF basket.

This would be the second ETF offering by the government in the current fiscal which ends in March. In November last year, the government had raised Rs 17,300 crore through a follow-on offer of another exchange traded fund -- CPSE ETF, which comprises shares of 11 public sector enterprises. This was the biggest-ever fund raising from an ETF domestically.