The Hindu Business Line : Rs 51,600 cr raised from divestment: White paper

New Delhi, Nov. 23 The Centre has raised Rs 51,600 crore from disinvestment of equity in Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs) and strategic sale of state-owned companies since the inception of the policy in 1991.

According to the White Paper on Disinvestment of the CPSEs tabled in Parliament on Friday, the total realisation from the strategic sale transactions was Rs 6,344.35 crore, which is around one-tenth of the total amount of Rs 51,608.8 crore raised from disinvestment till July 31, 2007.

Market capitalisation

The paper further pointed out that the market capitalisation of the 40 CPSEs, whose shares are listed and traded on stock exchanges, was Rs 7.76 lakh crore as on July 31, with ONGC leading the chart with almost Rs 2 lakh crore.

The other CPSEs with high market capitalisation are NTPC (Rs 1.37 lakh crore), BHEL (Rs 84,770 crore), SAIL (Rs 61,976 crore) and IOC (Rs 48,039 crore). “With regard to realisation, bulk of the receipts amounting to Rs 33,543.56 crore came from sale of minority shareholding in the state-owned companies,” it said.

Strategic sale

The realisation from strategic sale of companies was Rs 6,344.35 crore, while sale of residual stake in CPSEs yielded Rs 6,398.27 crore to the exchequer. The proposed strategic sale of 13 CPSEs including Nalco, STC, HPCL, Shipping Corporation and National Fertilisers was called off in 2005 by the UPA government. The other CPSEs which were on the block included MOIL, Sponge Iron, NBCC, RCFL, EIL, Balmer Lawrie, EPIL, and Hindustan Paper Corporation.

During the current financial year, the paper said, the Government realised Rs 2,366.94 crore from sale of residual 10.27 per cent shares in Maruti Udyog Ltd. It added that the Government would realise another Rs 2,881 crore from dilution of its stake in the NHPC, Power Grid Corporation and Rural Electrification Corporation.

Meanwhile, the Government has appointed UTI Asset Management Co, SBI Funds Management (Private) Ltd, and Jeevan Bima Sahayog Asset Management Co to manage the funds of National Investment Fund (NIF).