Govt plans strategic stake sales in state-run companies: Jaitley

The government plans to sell stakes in state-run companies through strategic sales to partly meet its target for raising revenues from asset sales, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Friday.

Addressing a news conference, Jaitley also said banks' bad loans had come down in the quarter that ended in March.

Non-performing loans weighing on banks' balance sheets have acted as a drag on an investment-driven recovery that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's one-year-old government wants to bring about.

(Reporting by Manoj Kumar Writing byDouglas Busvine Editing by Malini Menon)