Early divestment in ‘six or seven’ PSUs: top official

The government will divest equity in six or seven state-owned companies over the next 12 months, finance secretary Ashok Chawla has said. ''We have a proposal to amend the national investment fund which will be put before a cabinet panel soon,'' he told reporters in New Delhi on Tuesday.

Speaking on the sidelines of a Corporation Bank function, Chawla said, "Two companies are going to the market. Others are getting finalised. So there would be six to seven more companies which will come up (for stake sale)," he said.

He was referring to the National Hydroelectric Power Corp and Oil India Ltd. While NHPC has already completed its initial public offering, OIL is slated to hit the market in September. The NHPC issue, which is expected to raise about Rs6,000 crore, was oversubscribed 23 times.

Chawla also said there were no immediate plans to revise the government's market borrowing figure of Rs451 thousand crore for the current financial year, especially considering the drought conditions in the country.

"We don't see at this point in time any need to rejig our borrowing programme, which is quite substantial," he said.

Chawla expressed confidence of meeting the revised direct tax collection target of Rs4000 crore for the fiscal year, which is Rs30,000 crore more than the budgeted target.