Letters: Believing in PSUs

In his article "India's economic theory fashion cycles" (April 7) Ajit Balakrishnan overlooks the repeatedly demonstrated inability of the Indian public sector units (PSUs) to compete with the Indian private sector on a level playing field. BSNL pays its linemen Rs 35,000 plus per month when its private sector counterpart pays (its much younger) employees Rs 15,000 for three to five times as much value addition. So, BSNL is inherently uncompetitive irrespective of whether particular pension liabilities are funded by the government or not.

Only a careful mixing of sectors where PSUs are dominant monopolies along with others can show PSUs performing better than the private sector.

Alok Sarkar Kolkata

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