Date:12/03/2004 URL: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2004/03/12/stories/2004031202540300.htm

Back Govt hopes to mop up Rs 1,50,000 cr through divestment

Our Bureau

New Delhi , March 11

THE Government on Thursday indicated that it would cash in on the buoyant stock market to raise as much as Rs 1,50,000 crore a year through public offers of State-owned units.

"We got overwhelming response to these IPOs without much marketing. If we do proper marketing we could raise up to Rs 1,50,000 crore every year," Mr Arun Shourie, the Disinvestment Minister, said while closing the Young Indian Conference, under the aegis of the Confederation of Indian Industry here.

With retail investors and foreign institutional investors reposing their faith in the PSUs, the money raised through IPOs could be used for funding mega projects such as the Prime Minister's Golden Quadrilateral Highway Project and river-linking scheme, he said.

"Then you don't have to depend on the Planning Commission for the mega projects," he said.

According to him, the ONGC issue has proved that the global investors had faith in key areas of the Indian economic system such as the judiciary, currency and accounting. "They are showing great confidence in the Indian rupee," he said.

Revaluation of Government companies in the market has made them behemoths, at least in the region. "The market capitalisation of ONGC has reached a level which is one-half of Pakistan's Gross Domestic Product," he pointed out.