The Government on Friday said that the follow-on public offer of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation will take off as scheduled on July 5.
“The FPO will go on according to schedule. Government works on long-term planning,” Mr Siddharth Pradhan, Additional Secretary, Department of Disinvestment, told PTI.
Doubts were raised about the timing of the proposed FPO as the scrip of the company was on the wane after government increased the burden of fuel subsidy payable by upstream oil firms from one-third to 38.8 pr cent for 2010-11 fiscal.
The move took a beating on ONGC's shares, which ended 1.17 per cent down at Rs 274.05 on the BSE.
Mr Pradhan, however, declined to divulge the amount the government plans to raise through the FPO, saying, “We will divest five per cent stake. The corpus would depend upon the prevailing market condition.”
The government was targeting Rs 14,000 crore from the FPO but at current rates it will get just over Rs 11,000 crore.