The Centre will contain its fiscal deficit to 4.8 per cent of GDP as it expects to mop up Rs 13,500 crore (Rs 135 billion) from the ongoing public offering of government equity in six companies, a senior finance ministry official said on Monday.

"About $3 billion (nearly Rs 13,500 crore) will be mobilised through public offers of PSU shares in our bourses," Vijay Kelkar, advisor to finance minister, said at an international insurance summit in New Delhi.

He said the success of public offers will assist the Centre to restrict the fiscal gap to the targeted level of 4.8 per cent, as indicated by Finance Minister Jaswant Singh in his budget.

Major institutional investors like LIC and GIC have bid heavily for the PSU shares.

"We have bid for more or less 15 per cent of the public offers. In ONGC alone, we have bid for shares worth about Rs 1,000 crore (Rs 10 billion). The figure would be around Rs 2,000 crore (Rs 20 billion) in all the companies taken together," LIC chairman S B Mathur said.

GIC chairman P C Ghosh also confirmed the corporation has heavily bid for PSU shares but declined to elaborate.

So far, the government has been able to mop up over Rs 3,600 crore (Rs 36 billion) from the sale of equity in IPCL, IBP, CMC, Dredging Corporation and GAIL. This is in addition to Rs 1,300 crore (Rs 13 billion) from the sale of equity in Maruti Udyog and Hindustan Zinc.

The Centre targets to mop up Rs 10,000 crore (Rs 100 billion) from the ongoing public offer of 10 per cent stake in ONGC.