Disinvestment Department is awaiting Sebi guidelines on the revised buyback and institutional placement norms

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for formulating new strategy to sale government stake in public sector units to move towards its Rs 40,000 crore divestment target.

"Department of Disinvestment (DoD) is waiting for clarity on new Sebi rules before going ahead with new disinvestment drive," sources said.

Market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has relaxed norms for buyback of shares and dilution of equity by companies.

The new norms would help the companies to complete the process of selling shares within days against the normal process which can take months, a move that will facilitate offloading of government shares in central PSUs.

Besides reducing the timeline for completion of buyback of shares by companies to 34-44 days, it has also introduced a new mechanism called Institutional Placement Programme (IPP)-- that would allow promoters to sell up to 10 per cent of their capital through an auction.

The DoD is running against time to meet its ambitious disinvestment target of Rs 40,000 crore for the current fiscal. Till date it has been able to raise only Rs 1,145 crore from PFC.

In order to fast track the disinvestment programme, the DoD had sought opinion of concerned ministries for buyback of shares and prepared a list of cash-rich PSUs in this regard.

Several ministries like oil, power, steel, coal and mines are believed to have opposed the proposal as it could impact the business expansion plans of the PSUs.