New Delhi: India's government intends to raise Rs400 billion ($9 billion) by part-privatising state-owned companies in the next fiscal year, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said Monday.

"I intend to maintain the momentum of disinvestment," Mukherjee told lawmakers as he presented the government's budget for the fiscal year starting April 1.

He said shares worth Rs400 billion would be sold - the same amount as for the current fiscal year - and that the government would retain a controlling 51-per cent stake in all public companies targeted for divestment.

Sales of shares in major state-owned industrial groups last year saw huge demand, with the divestment of a 10-percent stake in Coal India raising $3.4 billion.

Shares in Coal India, the world's biggest coal miner, were oversubscribed 15 times and the success of the issue was seen as likely to give a boost to the government's privatisation programme.

Part-privatisations of miner Manganese Ore Ltd and electricity transmission group Power Grid were also a success, but earlier issues by state-run iron-ore miner NMDC and thermal-power generator NTPC were seen as overpriced.

Mukherjee also announced a food security bill for 2011/12, a measure that would provide cheap grains for millions of India's poor but which has sparked worries of a huge fiscal cost.

It was one of the first signs of populism in the annual budget as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh confronted high prices and corruption scandals as well as elections in five states this year.

In his budget speech, Mukherjee dismissed fears of policy drift and announced incentives for private investment in infrastructure as well as moves to help agricultural productivity to sustain economic growth and lower inflation.

The minister raised the foreign investment limit in corporate infrastucture bonds by $20 billion. Mukherjee also said infrastructure debt funds would be created. "Certain events in the past few months may have created an impression of drift in governance and a gap in public accountability," Mukherjee told parliament in what is widely expected to be a populist budget. "Such an impression is misplaced."

In a pilot move, the minister said some subsidies for food and fuel would be directly given as cash to customers starting in March, a move aimed at making the subsidies system more efficient with less waste.

Analysts say it was unlikely that the government will unveil any politically-sensitive reforms in the budget for the fiscal year starting in April.

The government is expected to count on a robust economy to expand revenue in the absence of big one-time gains that it enjoyed in the current year from the sale of 3G telecom licences. Mukherjee said he expected the economy to grow 9 percent in 2011/2012 and for inflation to ease.

It is also expected to withdraw more of the stimulus that helped India weather the global economic downturn.

Asia's third-largest economy is on track to grow at 8.6 percent in the current fiscal year that ends in March. A new government survey has forecast economic growth of about 9 percent for the next fiscal year.

India's economy grew a slower-than-expected 8.2 percent in the October to December quarter from a year earlier, government data on Monday showed. The median forecast in a Reuters' poll was an annual rise of 8.6 percent.

Reform measures, such as liberalising foreign investment in multi-brand retail and setting out a definitive roadmap for a nationwide goods and services tax, may need to wait for a more receptive political climate.

The move on corporate bonds helped the India rupee strengthen to 45.21 per dollar from 45.25 per dollar. India's main stock index .BSESN extended gains to more than 1 percent during the start of his speech. The moves to bolster development of India's infrastructure were expected. Inadequate power, roads and other infrastructure act as bottlenecks to growth and push up costs.