President asks PSUs to be partners in agriculture

President Pratibha Patil today asked the public sector units to partner the agricultural sector to enhance the country's farm productivity.

"I would, in particular, like PSUs (public sector units) to innovate and see whether they can partner with the agricultural sector to enhance farm productivity, especially in rain-fed areas," the President said at the first 'Public Sector Day' celebrations here.

The day marks the founding of the Standing Conference of Public Sector Enterprises (SCOPE), an apex body of the PSUs, in 1973.

Asking the PSU CEOs to take it as a challenge, she said initially the PSUs can partner with individual farmers as a part of their social responsibility and "later (this can) become a viable business model".

The President, who gave away meritorius awards to heads of 14 PSUs, said that an individual farmer is essentially a private entrepreneur. "So, a combination of private entrepreneurs and PSUs working together, will turn out to be a great venture," she said.

Patil's advice to the PSUs comes in the wake of the agriculture sector not being able to keep pace with the other sectors like industry and services in the country's GDP. For the fiscal 2008-09, while the overall economy is estimated to have grown by 7.2 per cent, the farm sector showed a deceleration of about 0.2 per cent.

It has remained far short of the target of four per cent growth in the recent past.

The President lauded the role of the PSUs in the national economy. Starting with a modest investment of Rs 29 crore in five enterprises on the eve of the first Five-Year Plan in 1956, enterprises in the public sector have steadily progressed to 246 in number with an investment of Rs 5,29,950 crore till 2009.

She said the PSUs remain "relevant as they have demonstrated the ability to adjust to the changing environment". These units would continue to be important if they take steps to keep their performance under constant review as also strive for competitiveness, she said.

The PSUs have successfully undertaken course correction, when faced with a competitive situation after India began to liberalise its economy in the 1990s, she said. Many PSUs have proved themselves to be wealth-creators.

Some have also emerged as effective players in international markets. The 2009 Forbes Global List of 2,000 companies includes 47 Indian companies, among these 25 were Indian public sector companies.

"The effort to be globally competitive should continue," she said.