A laborer prepares to unload sacks of potatoes from a truck at a wholesale vegetable and fruit market in New Delhi on Wednesday. India’s new government will seek to raise up to a record US$11.7 billion in asset sales in its maiden budget this week, a senior government source said, bolstering state finances and buying time for structural reforms to revive a weak economy. The privatization target could reach 700 billion rupees (US$11.7 billion), almost equal to all proceeds over the last four years, in a budget Prime Minister Narendra Modi hopes will launch the growth and jobs agenda that in May won him India’s biggest election mandate in three decades. The budget is due Thursday. SD-Agencies