State Renewal Fund to take forward PE reforms

The Orissa government will create a special fund to continue the reform process in the state owned enterprises. The fund named as Orissa State Renewal Fund (OSRF) is proposed to have a corpus of Rs 50 crore which will be built over a period of 4 to 5 years.

The Department for International Development (DFID) of the UK government has agreed to contribute Rs 10 crore to the OSRF in the first year after the Orissa government allocates its share of Rs 10 crore to the fund. The state government will contribute Rs 10 crore each year for a period of 4 years.

A society named as Orissa State Renewal Fund Society (OSRFS) is proposed to be constituted and registered to oversee the continuance of the reforms process in the public enterprises, a senior official of the public enterprise department said.

The government has approved the proposal of the state public enterprise (PE) department for constitution of such a fund to carry forward the activities started under the Orissa Public Enterprise Reform Programme (OPERP).

The new programme of action will start post-December 2008 when the financial assistance provided by the DFID to the Orissa Public Enterprises Reform Programme (OPERP) will come to an end.

Sources said, the employees opting for the voluntary retirement scheme (VRS) and voluntary separation scheme (VSS) towards December this year need training and other skill upgrade under the Social Safety Net Programme (SSNP) for enabling them to take up alternative employment. However, this will not be possible if the programme is discontinued in December.

Further, the public enterprise restructuring process namely privatization and restructuring, which are in different stages of completion at present, need more time for completion. Though the second phase of the reform programme was scheduled to start in 2004-05, it actually started in 2005-06.

DFID has released about Rs 180 crore for OPERP till the end of September and the PE department was able to spent Rs 222.69 crore during this period. While the expenditure incurred for training and development is fully disbursed by DFID, the state government contributes 20 percent of the expenditure incurred for VRS/VSS.

In the second phase of OPERP, 6517 persons were imparted training and 20,600 persons were given VRS.

The employees opting for VRS/VSS were imparted training mainly in vocational, computer, electrical works and livelihood programmes like mobile repairing and hardware among others.

As a measure of success of the public sector reform, the number of profit making units increased to 20 from 9 by the end of 2006-07. Meanwhile, the department has drawn up an action plan to utilise Rs 29 crore, pledged by DFID for the current fiscal, by December.