The Finance Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee is optimistic about meeting the disinvestment target of Rs 40,000 crore for 2011-12, even as a mere Rs 1,144.55 crore has been mopped up through this route so far this fiscal.

While declining to elaborate on how he expects to achieve this target in the remaining months, Mr Mukherjee, however, made it clear that the Centre would wait for the right market conditions for going ahead with the stake sale process.

“I am confident that I will be able to get this amount of Rs 40,000 crore. But one area where I am bit conservative is I will not upfront roll out the list of companies or how much I am going to offload,” Mr Mukherjee told reporters here.

Last fiscal, too, the Centre had targeted divestment receipts of Rs 40,000 crore, but could mop-up only Rs 22,763 crore. But there was no pressure then to meet the target as the Centre reaped a bonanza of Rs 1.06 lakh crore from 3G spectrum and wireless broadband auctions — as against the Rs 35,000 crore that was budgeted from these auctions.

> krsrivats@thehindu.co.in

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