Undeterred by the deferment of RINL public offer, the Finance Ministry today said it would push for the divestment of Hindustan Copper, Oil India, and Nalco next month.

“We are trying to push Hindustan Copper and Nalco by the first week of November. Hopefully, Oil India should also hit the market by in the same month,” Haleem Khan, Disinvestment Secretary said on the sidelines of a capital markets summit organised by the industry lobby FICCI here.

On asked if he is confident of achieving the divestment target of Rs 30,000 crore, he said, “There should not be any pessimism about the total number.”

Discounting the setback the disinvestment department had to face with the part-sale of RINL (Rashtriya Ispat Nigam) earlier this week, Khan said it is a small issue and he does not think it will have a bearing on the total target.

“The general feedback from the i-bankers is that once the expansion plan (of RINL) is rolled out, it will give better price. Also, the commodity market, especially steel is a bit depressed now. So, we will revisit the whole thing in a month or two,” the secretary said.

The government plans to raise around Rs 2,000 crore by off-loading 9.59 per cent stake in Hindustan Copper, around Rs 2,950 crore by offloading 10 per cent in OIL and about Rs 1,600 crore through selling 12.15 per cent in Nalco.

When asked about stake sales in other companies, especially NTPC, Khan said they will happen before March.

About achieving the minimum public float in public sector companies, Khan said there are some sick companies in which people may not be interested to buy into and the government does not know how to comply with the public float directions in these companies.

He, however, said that those companies, which don’t have minimum free float, have started preparation for achieving the same.

Khan said the proposed PSU exchange traded fund (ETF), will take a little while and the ministry is trying to engage an advisor for the proposed ETF.

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