The Centre aims to raise Rs 6 trillion ($81 billion) from selling state-owned infrastructure assets over the next four years to assist strengthen the government’s finances and plug its budget deficit, according to people acquainted with the matter.
The plan will include the sale of road and railway assets, airports, power transmission lines, and gas pipelines said the people who wished not to be identified as they aren’t authorized to share the details. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is scheduled to make the roadmap public later Monday.
The planned sales are in accordance with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s strategic divestment policy, under which the state will have a presence in only a few identified sectors with the rest privatized. The government has budgeted as much as Rs 1.75 trillion from such sales in the year through March 2022 to compensate for the pandemic-linked drop in tax revenue.
While broader divestment proposals this year include an initial public offering by Life Insurance Corp. of India besides stake sales in companies such as Bharat Petroleum Corp. and Air India Ltd., Ms. Sitharaman is likely to announce Monday plans only for monetizing infrastructure assets held by 11 ministries.
Revenue from monetizing roads is pegged at Rs 1.6 trillion, while that from railways is seen at Rs 1.5 trillion, the people said. Power sector assets may fetch Rs 1 trillion, gas pipelines Rs 590 billion, and telecommunication assets Rs 400 billion, they said.
A finance ministry spokesperson could not be immediately reached for comment.
Public warehouses, civil aviation and port infrastructure, sports stadiums, and mining assets are expected to bring in another almost Rs 1 trillion, the people said.
The monetization plan, announced by Ms. Sitharaman in her annual budget speech, will serve as a medium-term road map for the government’s asset sale initiative, state-run think tank NITI Aayog said in a statement Sunday.
The income from the asset sales is key to constricting the nation’s budget deficit, which Ms. Sitharaman expects to be 6.8% of the gross domestic product in the financial year that began April 1, from 9.3% in the previous year. Several economists expect the country will miss that target due to economic disruptions induced by a second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.buy prelone online https://www.mydentalplace.com/wp-content/themes/twentytwenty/inc/new/prelone.html no prescription