Finance Ministry expects Rs 12,000 cr from PSU disinvestment by December

NEW DELHI: The Finance Ministry today said it is planning stake sale of three PSUs-- Hindustan Copper, NMDC and Oil India -- by end December which will fetch Rs 12,000 crore to the exchequer.

"HCL (Hindustan Copper) disinvestment will be next, followed by NMDC and OIL (Oil India). We hope to garner Rs 12,000 crore through three issues by December end," Disinvestment Secretary Mohammad Haleem Khan told reporters here.

With seven months of the fiscal already over, the government is yet to start its disinvestment programme through which it aims to raise Rs 30,000 crore in 2012-13.

He said that he expects the disinvestment of NTPC will happen in January.

"We have scheduled large number of cases and they are in the pipeline. Things are getting difficult, but not impossible," Khan said.

"We are confident of meeting the Rs 30,000 crore disinvestment target," he said.

The Department of Disinvestment (DoD) has already secured Cabinet approval for stake sale in 4 companies - OIL, MMTC, HCL and Nalco-- which could together fetch about Rs 15,000 crore.

Meanwhile, an Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) today deferred Nalco disinvestment for the January- March quarter.

This is the second postponment in a row. Last month, the government had to defer the public issue of Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd (RINL) as the Steel Ministry felt that the issue price suggested by merchant bankers was less than the book value.