Mumbai, March 15: NMDC Ltd — the country’s largest iron-ore company — today announced an issue price of Rs 300 a share for its follow-on public offering that closed last week.

This means that the Centre will fall about Rs 2,700 crore short of its target of raising Rs 25,958 crore by March 31 from the sale of the government’s stake in public sector firms.

The NMDC issue had set a price band of Rs 300-350 per share. But it found no takers at the upper end of the price band. Retail investors had shown little interest in the stock, and state-owned Life Insurance Corporation had to step in to rescue the flotation.

The Centre has raised over Rs 13,500 crore by divesting part of its holdings in NHPC, Oil India, NTPC and Rural Electrification Corporation.

At an issue price of Rs 300 per share and including the discount given to retail investors, the government would have raised about Rs 9,700 crore from the NMDC issue. This takes the total divestment receipts to Rs 23,200 crore.

The only way to meet the target now is to fast-track the initial public offering of Satluj Jal Vidyut Nigam (SJVN). This appears unlikely as SJVN — another player in the hydroelectric space — filed the draft prospectus for its issue with the Securities and Exchange Board of India only late last month.

The indication is that this issue will kick off the divestment programme for next year with a flotation due in early April. The government is hoping to raise Rs 40,000 crore from the stake sale process, making it the most ambitious target set for the divestment programme.

At the time of filing its draft papers, SJVN had indicated that the Centre was planning to raise around Rs 1,200 crore from the sale of 10 per cent of its 75 per cent stake in the power company. The remaining stake is held by the Himachal Pradesh government. The offer for sale comprises 410,881,400 shares with 6,737,500 shares reserved for employees and 404,143,900 shares being the net offer.

The NMDC stock fell 5 per cent on the Bombay Stock Exchange today to close at Rs 344.60.