NEW DELHI: India has set up a new exchange-traded fund to sell government stakes in 22 state-run and private firms under its $11.4 billion asset sale programme, Finance Mini­s­ter Arun Jaitley told reporters on Friday.

Jaitley has budgeted to raise 725 billion Indian rupees ($11.39bn) through the asset sale programme in the fiscal year to end-March 2018.

The fund will trade government shares in four state-run energy com­­panies — ONGC Ltd, BPCL, IOC and Coal India, he said.

It will also include ban­­­king and finance companies such as SBI, Bank of Baroda, Indian Bank, Rural Electrifica­tion Corp. Ltd., Power Finance Corp Ltd and Axis Bank.

New Delhi will sell shares, via the fund, in utilities like Power Grid Corp, NTPC, Gail, NHPC, NLC and SJVN.Industrials included in the fund are: Bharat Elec­­­tronics, Engineers India and NBCC.

Published in Dawn, August 6th, 2017