Indian government to sell up to 7% stake in coal miner NLC

NEW DELHI (Reuters) -India's federal government will offer to sell a stake of up to 7% in coal miner NLC India this week, according to filing to the stock exchange.

The government holds a 79.2% stake in the company, whose shares have nearly tripled over the last year to 226.70 rupees as of Wednesday.

The government will offer to sell 5% of its stake in the state-run company, which also operates power plants, with an option to sell an additional 2% stake if there is more demand, according to the notification. The floor price for the sale has been set 212 rupees per share, which is a 6.5% discount to the shares closing price on Wednesday.

The shares will be offered to institutional investors on Thursday, and the issue will open for retail investors on Monday.

Indian stock market will remain closed on Friday for a local holiday.

The 7% stake sale in the state-run firm will fetch the government about 20.6 billion rupees.

The government aims to sell shares worth at least 180 billion rupees in the fiscal year which ends this month. It has divested shares in government-owned companies worth 126 billion rupees so far.

($1 = 82.8200 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Nikunj Ohri and Sudarshan Varadhan, Editing by Louise Heavens)