Growing fiscal pressures have prompted the government to accelerate disinvestment plans and set an internal target to mobilise capital receipts of at least Rs 80,000 crore via this route in the current fiscal year.
According to official sources, the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) has been tasked with raising an average of Rs 20,000 crore per quarter through sale of government stakes in companies.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is learnt to have personally directed the DIPAM team to treat revenue mobilisation with greater urgency. Officials cited how the Department of Economic Affairs (DEA) acted during the Covid-19 pandemic in mobilizing resources from multilateral development banks, the sources said.
Raising Rs 80,000 crore from disinvestment alone would mean that the Budget target for “miscellenous capital receipts,” which includes asset monetisation proceeds, would be overshot by a significant margin.
The new push to disinvestment comes as the government faces growing fiscal strain amid the US-Iran conflict and limited scope to raise taxes. Though direct tax revenues are doing well, overall tax receipts might undershoot the modest Budget Estimate due to various factors including the excise cuts on auto fuels.
Disinvestment started on a relatively brisk note this year, bucking the subdued trend of recent years. Over Rs 18,561 crore was raised in Q1FY27, 10% more than Rs 16,886 crore garneted in the whole of FY26.
The current fiscal year would be fiscally challenging, making non-tax revenue mobilisation a key source for additional resources, the sources said.
Drawing a parallel with the government’s response during the pandemic, sources recalled how the DEA had mobilised resources within weeks to finance vaccine development and the nationwide vaccination programme without imposing additional taxes.
Within one month after the lockdown in March 2020, the government mobilised $1.5 billion from the Asian Development Bank, $1 billion from the World Bank and $500 million from the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.
The minister is understood to have demanded similar sense of urgency from DIPAM as geopolitical risks threaten revenues, and budgetary support could rise for key subsidies including fertiliser and cooking gas.
Sitharaman is said to have broken down the revenue mobilisation exercise into quarterly milestones. She is also reviewing the progress on a weekly basis.
Beyond stake sales, the minister is closely monitoring asset monetisation, and coordinating with state governments and other ministries to fast-track unlocking of idle government assets.