In FY14, disinvestment proceeds were merely 53% of budgeted target, report said.New Delhi:The Centre is unlikely to meet its disinvestment target of Rs 80,000 crore this year, resulting in overshooting fiscal deficit target, Care Ratings said on Friday.A report by domestic rating agency said that owing to a shortfall in disinvestment realisations as well in indirect tax collections under GST regime, fiscal deficit will come in at 3.5 per cent as against targeted 3.3 per cent, signifying a slippage of around Rs 20,000 crore."In this fiscal year, meeting disinvestment target of Rs 80,000 crore will be challenging given volatile conditions in financial markets.
We expect that disinvestment proceeds could be around Rs 60,000 crore for FY19," said report titled 'Disinvestments in CPSEs - Hits and misses.'"The disinvestment proceeds have fallen short of targeted disinvestment by Central government for past five years, except in FY18.
On an average, government has achieved nearly 65 per cent of budgeted disinvestment during FY14-FY17.
In FY14, disinvestment proceeds were merely 53 per cent of budgeted target, lowest in all years," it said.In last fiscal, total disinvestment proceeds came in at Rs 1 lakh crore, exceeding budgeted target of Rs 72,500 crore, report added.It also said that with a little over two months to go for fiscal year-end, government had raised Rs 32,142 crore, or 43 per cent of target by December.Of this, Rs 25,325 crore has been raised through Central Public Sector Enterprises Exchange Traded Fund (CPSE-ETF) mechanism allowing simultaneous sale of government stake in various CPSEs across diverse sectors through a single offer.Among various divestment routes, offer-for-sale comes second in realisations with Rs 5,218 crore, followed by over Rs 1,500 crore raised through share buybacks.To make up shortfall, government has decided to come up with another tranche of ETF with Bharat 22 ETF offer and can raise about Rs 14,000 crore by selling 52.63 per cent stake in Rural Electrification Corp, report said.It can attempt to raise another Rs 12,000 crore through share buybacks of state-run units in a context limited by volatility in markets, it added.(Except for headline, this story has not been edited by TheIndianSubcontinent staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)