India asset sale target slips away on market swings

New Delhi

WHEN Indian Finance Minister Arun Jaitley read out the annual asset sale target during his February budget speech, one person was immediately sceptical: the woman tasked with making it happen.

Aradhana Johri, the Indian bureaucrat in charge of selling stakes in state-run companies, proposed a target of about 400 billion rupees (S$8.6 billion), according to a person familiar with the situation who asked not to be named. Mr Jaitley instead set the goal at 695 billion rupees - almost triple what the government earned the previous 12 months.