The sale of national carrier Air India to conglomerate Tatas has opened the way for faster privatisation of state firms and the government is on track to list Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) early next year, a top government official said on Tuesday.
Tuhin Kanta Pandey, spearheading the drive to sell state enterprises or shut them down, said the government hoped to complete the valuation exercise of LIC by November-December before filing the draft red herring prospectus for the IPO planned by March.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government is trying to reinvigorate the economy after its deepest contraction in decades through market-oriented changes and hoping to lure investment away from China and other countries.
Pandey said the deal with Tatas to sell Air India for $2.4 billion was complex and long in the making but provided confidence for the divestment of other state assets. A previous attempt in 2017 to sell the carrier that has been losing a billion dollars a year had failed.
