PSU disinvestment: Govt may cut stake in Indian Oil, NTPC, GAIL to below 51%

While the fourth issue of Bharat-22 exchange traded fund (ETF) will hit the market on October 3-4 and may help the government raise about Rs 5,000 crore on a net basis, a series of bigger ETF baskets are likely to be on offer over the following few weeks, enabling it to boost the disinvestment mop-up. “Once the Cabinet gives its nod to bring down government holdings in select PSUs to below 51%, there will be a lot of scope to issue bigger Bharat-22 ETF tranches,” a senior official said.

In her Budget speech, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said: “The Centre is considering, in case where the PSU is still to be retained under government control, to go below 51% to an appropriate level on a case-to-case basis”.