The lukewarm response to sale of equity in power PSUs NTPC and REC notwithstanding, the government should push ahead with disinvestment while paying attention to the timing, industry group Ficci said today.
"The timing could be erred but the intent is very clear," Ficci's new President Rajan Mittal told PTI when asked about the government's divestment programme in the face of the equity sale getting a very poor response particularly from retail investors.
On whether the government had financial acumen or capability to complete the programme of disinvestment, he said: "It is not fair to say that the government has no wherewithal. (But) timing has always been an issue and can impact either the private or government entity."
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has set a budgetary target of mopping up Rs 40,000 crore from disinvestment in 2010-11.
On the appropriateness of government offering the shares of NMDC at a huge discount as part of a sell-off programme to raise a total of Rs 25,000 crore this fiscal, Mittal said, "They are only divesting 10 per cent. It is not that they are divesting the whole company."
"It is now very much clear that they (the government) will go into that (disinvestment) mode. They need money for social infrastructure, where is the money going to come from, the government has to raise money...," he said.