The Union government has exceeded its disinvestment target for the current fiscal by Rs 5,000 crore, taking the total proceeds to Rs 85,000 crore, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on March 22.

This is the second highest disinvestment proceeds in a financial year after the Centre mopped up a little more than Rs 1 lakh crore in 2017-18, helped by ONGC acquiring the government’s entire 51.11 per cent stake in oil refiner HPCL for Rs 36,915 crore.

In the current fiscal, the government is eyeing Rs 14,500 crore by way of selling its 52.63 per cent stake in REC to state-owned PFC.

Besides, the fifth tranche of the CPSE ETF, which ended on March 22, has garnered Rs 10,000 crore to the exchequer. Through the issuance of two tranches of the CPSE ETF in the current fiscal, the government has raised Rs 27,000 crore.

In a tweet, Jaitley said, “As against a target of Rs 80,000 crore for disinvestment for the current year, the divestment receipts have touched Rs 85,000 crore today.”

In 2016-17, the government had mopped up Rs 46,247 crore through CPSE disinvestment, as against the Budget target of Rs 56,500 crore. In 2015-16, it had raised Rs 23,997 crore, as against the Budget target of Rs 69,500 crore. In 2014-15, receipts from disinvestment stood at Rs 26,068 crore against a target of Rs 58,425 crore.

In 2017-18 fiscal, the record proceeds of Rs 1 lakh crore were achieved against a Budget target of Rs 72,500 crore.

For the next fiscal, the disinvestment target has been fixed at Rs 90,000 crore.

The government had set Rs 3,500 crore as the base issue size for the three-day issuance of the fifth tranche of the CPSE ETF, with an option to retain over-subscription of up to Rs 10,000 crore. As much as 30 per cent of the issue size was reserved for anchor investors.

The ETF tracks shares of 11 CPSEs - ONGC, NTPC, Coal India, IOC, REC, Power Finance Corp, Bharat Electronics, Oil India, NBCC India, NLC India and SJVN.

Through the earlier four tranches of the CPSE ETF, the government has already raised Rs 28,500 crore - Rs 3,000 crore from the first tranche in March 2014, Rs 6,000 crore in January 2017, Rs 2,500 crore in March 2017 and Rs 17,000 crore in November 2018.