Government to sell stake in more than 1 PSU by March-end: Arun Jaitley

Gandhinagar: With less than three months left in the current fiscal, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the divestment programme would be pursued on priority and involve more than one PSU during this period. The comments follow media reports that the government is looking to sell 10 per cent stake in Coal India to raise Rs 24,000 crore.

While terming the reports as speculative, Jaitley said the government will sell part of its stake in more than one public sector company before March-end. "I am not making any comment on any specific company. All I can say is that the names being mentioned in the media are speculative," he told reporters on the sidelines of the Vibrant Gujarat Summit here. "As far as the government is concerned... in the next two-and-half months, leading up to March 31... is going about disinvestment in more than one company, which is going to be our priority," he said.

He, however, did not name the firms where the government is looking at divesting its stake. "... which is the one that we are coming up first, nobody knows, and therefore reports in media are speculative," he said. The government has realised Rs 1,715 crore from disinvestment proceeds so far in the current fiscal 2014-15, for which it had set a target of Rs 43,425 crore from sale of its shares in listed companies.