The Narendra Modi government might count on a massive consolidation spree among state-owned companies and listing of profit-making firms to meet the disinvestment target of Rs 72,500 crore for 2017-18, the highest for any year.
This could create some global giants as the Centre begins an exercise across sectors to determine which of its companies can be merged.
A day after Finance Minister Arun Jaitley mooted the idea of mergers and acquisitions among public sector undertakings (PSUs), senior government officials said oil and gas, power, chemicals, diversified manufacturing, mining and steel were the sectors in which companies could be merged.