Government to sell stake in three state firms on Friday - official

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The government will sell shares in three state-owned firms through a share auction on Friday to meet the market regulator's rules for a minimum 10 percent public shareholding in state firms.

India will sell 1.02 percent stake in State Trading Corp , 5 percent in Indian Tourism Development Corp and 3.56 percent stake in Neyveli Lignite Corp , Disinvestment Secretary Ravi Mathur told reporters.

The government hopes to raise 3.5 billion rupees from the Neyveli sale, Mathur said.

The government aims to raise 400 billion rupees through stake sales in the current fiscal year ending March 2014, but has so far only managed to raise around $160 million.

 

(Reporting by Manoj Kumar and Rajesh Kumar Singh; Editing by Prateek Chatterjee)