New Delhi, Feb 1 (IANS): Government will reduce its stake in state life insurer LIC through an IPO, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Saturday.

"Government will list LIC on the stock exchanges", she said in her Budget speech.

This could be the country's biggest initial public offering in recent times, the government will list Life Insurance Corp of India in the next financial year starting April.

The proposal to list LIC is something which will be a big ticket disinvestment proposals to push revenues of the government.

The current year disinvestment could not go beyond Rs 18000 crore. The listing of the company is going to be complicated as it has huge investments in real estate, art and equity market, which may prove to be time consuming for valuation purposes, an official said.

India's largest life insurer LIC's surplus for 2018-19 increased 9.9 per cent to Rs 532.14 billion. This was the first time that LIC's surplus crossed the 500-bln-rupee mark.