India has set itself a divestment target of Rs 50,000 crore for fiscal 2025, even as it revised lower its estimate for the ongoing fiscal to Rs 30,000 crore from Rs 51,000 crore earlier.
Except for FY18 and FY19, disinvestment receipts in the last eight years have fallen short of the budget estimate. For FY24, too, the government has missed estimates as the IDBI Bank Ltd. stake sale did not take off as planned.
The year also saw Pawan Hans Ltd., Bharat Petroleum Corp. and Shipping Corp. face roadblocks, hindering their sales and pushing their status into uncertainty. The money, which the government has managed to raise, was primarily led by the offers for sale of Coal India Ltd., NHPC Ltd., Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd. and SJVN Ltd., among other transactions.
"...Broadly, the disinvestment should be kept at a modest level. (The) market doesn't like to see very large numbers, then they start doubting the fiscal math early on, and that's not very helpful for yields," Aditi Nayar, chief economist at ICRA Ltd., had told NDTV Profit earlier.
Despite slow disinvestment, healthy dividends continue to be an asset, bringing up the total receipts of the government. The Department of Investment and Public Asset Management looks at dividends and receipts as a combined target, Secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey had told NDTV Profit ahead of the Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency Ltd. IPO in November 2023.
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