An investigation was made of the process of excitation of HgCl/sub 2/, HgBr/sub 2/, and HgI/sub 2/ molecules by electron impact producing B/sup 2/..sigma../sup +//sub 1/2/ states of HgCl*, HgBr*, and HgI*. The maximum values of the cross sections for dissociative excitation were found at low electron energies; the values of these cross sections were sigma = (6 +- 3) x 10/sup -18/, (7.5 +- 3) x 10/sup -17/, and (1.2 +- 0.6) x 10/sup -17/ cm/sup 2/ for HgCl*, HgBr*, and HgI*, respectively. The role of such dissociative excitation in lasing was analyzed.