Budget 2018: Divestment target met for the first time

NEW DELHI: The government has, for the first time in India’s history, beaten its own disinvestment target, raising about Rs 92,000 crore by selling its stake in staterun companies as against the budgeted Rs 72,500 crore.

Finance minister Arun Jaitley said he expects the disinvestment proceeds to rise further to `1 lakh crore in the remaining two months of the current financial year.

The higher realisation allowed the government to meet the shortfall in non-tax revenue this year besides containing the fiscal deficit at 3.5% of the GDP, same as last year but higher than the budgeted 3.2%.


Though buoyed by the success of its disinvestment policy, the government raised the target for 2018-19 by a modest 10.3% year-on-year to Rs 80,000 crore.

Jaitley said the government has initiated the process of strategic disinvestment in 24 CPSEs. He said the Department for Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) will also come up with more exchange-trade fund (ETF) offers, including debt ETFs.