New Delhi, Feb 10 (IANS) The government announced on Tuesday that it has launched an Offer for Sale (OFS) to divest up to a 5 per cent stake in engineering giant Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL).

The government will sell an initial 3 per cent stake, with an option to offload an additional 2 per cent stake to accommodate any oversubscription of bids. The floor price for the OFS has been fixed at Rs 254 per share.

“Offer for Sale in Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) opens tomorrow for Non-Retail investors. Retail investors can bid on Thursday. Government offers to disinvest 3 per cent equity in BHEL with an additional 2 per cent as green shoe option,” Secretary, Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM), wrote in a post on X.

The 3 per cent government stake represents over 10.44 crore shares in BHEL. The additional 2 per cent equity would work out to around 6.96 crore shares, taking the total number to 17.41 crore shares.

The shares will be sold through a separate, designated OFS window on the BSE and NSE.

Shares of Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd ended 0.53 per cent higher at Rs 276.05 on the BSE, gaining Rs 1.45 during the trading session on Tuesday.

The proposed stake sale is part of the Centre’s disinvestment programme for the current financial year (2025-26). However, the government fell short of its budgeted target of Rs 47,000 crore, prompting a downward revision to Rs 33,837 crore in the Revised Estimates (RE).

The Union Budget 2026–27 has set a disinvestment target of Rs 80,000 crore under miscellaneous capital receipts, which includes the sale of shares in public sector undertakings and asset monetisation.

Meanwhile, BHEL has also received a Letter of Acceptance (LoA) from Bharat Coal Gasification and Chemicals Limited (BCGCL) for a project worth around Rs 2,800 crore, excluding customs duty and goods and services tax.

BCGCL is a joint venture between Coal India Limited, which holds a 51 per cent stake, and BHEL, which owns the remaining 49 per cent. The order relates to the syngas purification plant under the LSTK-2 package for BCGCL’s coal-to-2,000-tonnes-per-day ammonium nitrate project at Lakhanpur in Odisha’s Jharsuguda district.

–IANS

sps/dan