The Cabinet Committee has finally approved the Initial Public Offer (IPO) of Rites. The RITES public issue proposal came up for consideration on Thursday at the meeting of union cabinet, presided over by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Rites, a government of India enterprise is a consultancy organisation in the fields of transport, infrastructure and related technologies. The organisation plans to launch the IPO in the next 3-4 months.

P. Chindambaram, Finance Minister, Said, “Rites will sell 10 million new shares through an initial public offering later this year, while Indian Railways will sell four million of its shares in the company through the IPO.”

After the IPO, the paid up equity of RITES will rise from Rs 40mn to Rs 50mn and the Government's stake in the company would decline to 72%, he added.