March 13 (Reuters) - India has reduced the proportion of

shares large companies must sell when listing on the stock

exchange, paving the way for initial public offerings by the

National Stock Exchange and Reliance Jio.

The regulator last year proposed to halve the minimum amount of

shares large companies had to offer in their IPOs, allowing

those valued at above 5 trillion rupees ($57 billion) after

listing to sell just 2.5% of their paid-up capital. This has now

been formally notified by the government, bringing it into

force.

The changes were part of rules released late on Friday. Details

of the changes are below:

* At least 2.5% of each class of equity shares can be

offered to the public.

* A mandatory glide path has been put in place to reach a

25% public shareholding. Companies with a public shareholding of

less than 15% at listing will have 5 years to reach 15% and 10

years to reach 25%.

* If the public float is more than 15% at listing, the

company will have 5 years to reach 25%.

* For companies with a market capitalisation of between 1

trillion rupees and 5 trillion rupees, the minimum public float

will be set at 2.75%.

* For companies with a market capitalisation of between 500

billion rupees and 1 trillion rupees, the minimum public float

is set at 8%.

* Other provisions include a condition that if a company

with a class of equity shares with superior voting rights is

listing ordinary shares, it must also mandatorily list the

shares having superior voting rights.