PSUs a liability on state finances: CAG

Sick public sector units continue to remain a huge liability on the state finances. A CAG report on West Bengal points out that during the year 2008-09, of the 72 working PSUs, 34 earned profits of '538 crore, but 32 PSUs incurred a loss of ' 608 crore.

The profit was on account of Haldia Petrochemicals, West Bengal Power Development Corporation, West Bengal State Electricity Distribution and West Bengal State Electricity Transmission Companies, among others. While heavy losses were incurred by the Calcutta Tramways Company, 1978. Durgapur Projects Ltd, Calcutta State Transport Corporation and Kalyani Spinning mills.

The report has attributed The losses to deficiencies in functioning of the PSUs, which could have been controlled with better management.

Also the quality of accounting required to be worked upon. Of the 70 accounts finalised during 2008-2009, only 37 received certificates.

There were 33 instances of non-compliance with the accounting standards. Moreover, of the 72 working PSUs, only 29 had finalised their accounts for 2008-09 up to September 2009. The accounts of remaining 43 were in arrears for periods ranging from one to five years. There were 23 non-working PSUs, of which two had finalised their accounts for years for 2008-09, while 15 PSUs had arrers of accounts of one to seven years. The remaining six PSUs had gone for voluntary winding up process.

The performance of the PSUs were significant as it accounted for 5.59 per cent of the state GDP with a turnover of Rs 17,304 crore for 2008-09.