NEW DELHI: The finance ministry is looking at launching the initial public offering (IPO) of Indian Railway Finance Corp Ltd (IRFC) and state-owned telecom infrastructure provider RailTel Corporation. Officials said the plan is to sell about 25 per cent in IRFC and 27 per cent stake in RailTel.
"The government is planning to sell 20-25 per cent stake in IRFC through an IPO and 27 per cent stake in RailTel," said Tuhin Kanta Pandey, Secretary of Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM). RailTel has already filed Draft Red Herring Prospectus (DRHP) with the market regulator SEBI for an IPO of up to 8.66 crore equity shares.
Earlier this month, the government had asked the department to go aggressive with the divestment plan. Apart from RailTel, divestment of another railway entity Container Corporation of India Ltd (ConCorp) is also on the cards. For this financial year, the Centre has set an ambitious disinvestment target of Rs 2.1 lakh crore.
However, the target will not be met this year due to the unprecedented pandemic, said officials. The divestment list for this fiscal includes IPO of Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) and a stake sale in IDBI Bank.
The government is also considering selling stakes in Air India, Bharat Petroleum Corporation, Shipping Corporation of India Ltd and pending Air India sales. None of these, however, have been completed so far with the government raising only Rs 5,695.63 crore.