PSU disinvestment: RINL IPO first to go

The government today said it will kickstart its ambitious Rs 30,000 crore disinvestment programme with stake sale in RINL this month.

"We have lined up all the cases for the next six months. The first case (RINL) is coming up sometime this month," Finance Minister P Chidambaram told reporters at the Economic Editors' Conference here.

The Rs 2,500-crore initial public offering (IPO) of the state-run Rashtriya Ispat Nigam (RINL) has been deferred twice since the filing of the draft documents with the market regulator Sebi on May 18.

An Empowered Group of Ministers is likely to meet tomorrow to decide on the date and pricing of the IPO, a source said.

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs in January had approved disinvestment of 10 per cent of the government's 100 per cent stake in the firm.

An official source said that government has identified four more PSUs -- NMDC, NTPC, Power Grid Corporation (PGCIL) and Engineers India (EIL) -- for divesting its minority stake.

"We have floated a paper for inter-ministerial consultation for disinvestment of NMDC, NTPC, EIL and PGCIL and the proposals would soon come up before the Cabinet," the source said.

The Department of Disinvestment (DoD), the nodal point for conducting PSU stake sale, has already got Cabinet approval for stake sale in seven companies, including RINL, Hindustan Copper, Oil India, MMTC, NALCO.

The government plans to raise Rs 30,000 crore through disinvestments in 2012-13.

On the budgeted target for disinvestment, Chidambaram said, "I will be quite happy if I can meet the target and complete the timetable (for disinvestment) as laid down.

Because if we do it in the five-and-a-half months that's indeed fast-tracking".

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