New Delhi: The Disinvestment Department has approached the Election Commission seeking its approval for appointing valuers for government's residual stake in Hindustan Zinc and Balco.
"We have written to the Election Commission seeking their nod for floating RFP (request for proposal) for appointment of valuers for HZL, Balco stake sale," a senior official of the Department of Disinvestment said.
"The valuers will take 6-8 weeks time for valuing the stake. We will then go ahead with appointment of merchant bankers," the official added.
The government holds 49 percent stake in Balco and 29.5 percent in Hindustan Zinc Ltd (HZL).
The Finance Ministry has already initiated the process of valuation the two companies.
The government had initially planned to sell the residual stake in these two companies last fiscal. However, in interim Budget it postponed the stake sale to the current fiscal.
The government plans to mobilise Rs 15,000 crore from the stake sale in HZL and Balco in the current fiscal.
In January, the Cabinet had cleared the stake sale in HZL and Balco through auction route.
During 2001-03, the government had sold majority stakes in the two erstwhile PSUs to Vedanta group.
At present, London-listed Vedanta holds 64.92 percent stake in HZL and 51 percent in Bharat Aluminium Company (Balco).
In January, 2012, Vedanta had proposed acquisition of government's remaining stake in the two erstwhile PSUs for about Rs 17,275 crore.
In October, 2012, shareholders gave their nod to raise offers for acquiring the remaining government stake in HZL and Balco by up to 43 percent or Rs 24,663 crore.
After shareholders approval, Vedanta Board is now empowered to make an offer of up to Rs 21,636.56 crore for the remaining government stake in HZL.
For Balco, the offer can be up to Rs 3,026.14 crore.
