Finance minister Arun Jaitley?s FY15 Budget pegs the disinvestment target at R58,425 crore, out of which R43,425 crore is to be garnered from stake sale in public sector companies, and R15,000 from the sale of residual stake in Hindustan Zinc and Balco. The government is also estimating about R5,000 crore from the stake it holds in Axis Bank through the Specified Undertaking of Unit Trust of India (SUUTI), although this is not part of its PSU divestment plan.

The PSU stake-sale target of R43,425 crore is higher than the the interim budget target of R36,925 crores, and the FY14 budgeted estimates of R40,000 crore. But in what was a clear sign of the uphill task faced by the disinvestment department last fiscal, that target was revised downwards by about 60% to R16,027 crore.

This fiscal, however, government officials and policy watchers say that not only will the target be met, but also it might be exceeded on back of a bull market, the Securities and Exchange Board of India?s (Sebi) plan to extend the minimum public shareholding norm to PSUs, and expectations of better coordination among various departments in the government.

The PSU disinvestment plan for FY15 targets stake sale in Sail, Coal India, Rural Electrification Corp, Power Finance Corp, Concor, NHPC, Moil, ONGC and three initial public offerings of Hindustan Aeronautics, THPC Ltd, and Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd. Most of these will be 5-10% stake sales.

In a post-Budget event last Saturday, finance secretary Arvind Mayaram said that the Centre might be able to exceed the target set out in the Budget partly because the stock markets were stronger compared to last year.

In the first three-and-a-half months of FY15, the Indian markets have risen 13% on the back of a strong mandate for the BJP government and expectations of growth-oriented reforms.

?We have been conservative about the target as we don?t want a situation where we raise expectations unnecessarily. But we are confident that the target is likely to be exceeded, especially if it is decided that some companies will have to meet the Sebi shareholding norm this fiscal,? a senior finance ministry official told FE.

In its last board meeting on June 19 in New Delhi, Sebi cleared a proposal to hike public holding in all PSUs to a minimum 25% within three years. The move is expected to help the government raise close to R60,000 crore through sale of excess shares in 38 state-run firms.

There is also hope in the bureaucracy that under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, various departments of the government will cooperate with the finance ministry on its disinvestment plans, the official said.

Last year, then finance minister P Chidambaram had to fight an uphill battle on disinvestment. There was stiff opposition from all the companies and ministries concerned and in some cases even the intervention of the Prime Minister?s Office did not help. The oil ministry and the heavy industries ministry did not want to sell stake in Indian Oil and Bhel in the open market, citing weak share prices. Hence the stake was picked up by other PSUs.

The biggest disappointment was Coal India, from which the Centre was planning to raise about R20,000 crore through a 10% stake sale. Its unions opposed any sort of stake sale, ultimately forcing the company?s board to pay its highest ever special dividend of R18,317 crore, of which the government received R16,485 crore.

After a lot of procedural delays, the sale of 26% stake which the government holds in HZL, and the 49% stake it has in Balco, was postponed to FY15.