Govt to stick to disinvestment target

Disinvestment, he said, was necessary to unlock the value of state-owned companies and garner resources for funding social sector programme of the government.

“We have fixed the target and we will try to achieve it, but it depends on many other situations, particularly the economic health conditions,” Mukherjee said on the sidelines on a seminar on PSU disinvestment.

“Keeping more than 51 per cent equity in government companies locked-up does not make economic sense when such valuable resources are required for redeployment in area where development is needed,” he said while addressing the seminar.

Seven months of the ongoing fiscal are over, but the government has been only able to raise Rs 1,145 crore through the stake sale in Power Finance Corporation (PFC) and there are apprehensions that it may miss the mammoth Rs 40,000 crore target for 2011-12.