After the initial public offerings of General Insurance Corporation of India and New India Assurance last year, the Centre is planning to reduce its stake further in the two companies with offers for sale later this year, media reported. Additionally, the Centre’s plans to merge National Insurance, Oriental Insurance, and United India Insurance and list the merged entity on the bourses has effectively been put on the backburner for now, with officials saying that just merging the three companies will be a time-consuming process. GIC Re’s IPO was carried out in October and was then India’s third-biggest IPO.

It was oversubscribed by 1.37 times and fetched the exchequer Rs 97 billion. New India Assurance’s IPO was in November. It wasn’t received as well, and with the support of Life Insurance Corporation buying stake, the exchequer received Rs 76.5 billion.

“Once the one-year lock-in period for these two companies end, we are considering OFS for them later this year. The quantum and percentage of stake to be sold through the exchanges is still being decided,” said a senior official.