The Centre is budgeting for modest disinvestment receipts in the coming fiscal — at Rs 51,000 crore against Rs 65,000 crore budgeted in the previous year.

The Centre has found it hard to drum up disinvestments in the current fiscal and the estimates for FY23 has also been revised to Rs 50,000 crore from the earlier target.

Data from the DIPAM website shows that proceeds from disinvestment stood at Rs 31,106.64 crore, only 48 per cent of the budgeted amount of Rs 65,000 crore.

In the current fiscal, the budgeted disinvestment target has been missed, like in the past four years.

At the same time, the government has amended section 72AA of the Income Tax Act to permit carry forward of accumulated losses and unabsorbed depreciation allowance in a strategic divestment when a banking company amalgamates with another.

There is a rider: the amalgamation must take place within five years of the strategic divestment. A strategic disinvestment has been defined as the sale of shares where the government’s shareholding goes down below 51 per cent and there is a transfer of control to the buyer.

“To facilitate further strategic disinvestment, it is proposed to amend the definition of ‘strategic disinvestment’ in section 72A of the Act so as to provide that strategic disinvestment shall mean sale of shareholding by the central government, the state or Public Sector Company or a company which results in (i)reduction of its shareholding below fifty-one per cent, and(ii) transfer of control to the buyer,” the budget said.