India is on track to beat its Rs 80,000 crore disinvestment target this fiscal year, helped by a record sale of LIC shares earlier this week.

That would be a rare win, since India has missed this kind of target more often than not in recent years.

The biggest push so far came this week, with the government selling shares worth Rs 31,550 crore in Life Insurance Corporation, its largest divestment in years.

Add in earlier stake sales in Coal India and Indian Railway Finance Corp, and the total raised so far crosses $5.5 billion. There’s more in the pipeline too.

The long pending sale of the government’s stake in IDBI Bank is expected to close before the fiscal year ends, which could bring in another $2.5 billion.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has reportedly set quarterly targets for the divestment department to keep the momentum going.

This fundraising push matters more this year because government finances are under some strain.

The conflict in West Asia has pushed up fuel and fertiliser subsidy costs, and subsidy spending for the April to June quarter jumped 37% compared to the same period last year.

Overall government spending for the quarter rose 11%. There’s a bright spot on the other side of the ledger though.

Dividend payouts to the government, mainly from the Reserve Bank of India and state run banks, have already touched Rs 3.24 trillion for the period between April 1 and August 5.

That’s already more than the Rs 3.16 trillion the government had expected for the entire year. The RBI alone contributed a record Rs 2.87 trillion of that.

The government hasn’t made any major announcements yet on asset monetisation, which usually involves selling land or setting up trusts that hold infrastructure assets.

That could be the next lever it reaches for if more funds are needed.

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