Scope Assails Govt For Diluting Selloff Panel Powers
The apex body of public sector undertakings yesterday ass-ailed the government for diluting the powers of the disinvestment commission saying various ministries were hesitant to give up controls over the state owned sector.
Secretary general of Standing Conference on Public Enterprises (SCOPE) M A Hakeem said this confirms our impression that various ministries are extremely hesitant to give up their control and powers to rule over PSUs.
Reacting to the industry ministry notification that took away all the monitoring and supervising powers of the disinvestment panel, Hakeem said SCOPE will welcome a review of the entire process by the new government that takes over after elections.
Demanding a statutory status for the panel headed by G V Ramakrishna, he said in an interview that the government measure eroded the possibility of early reforms in the public sector by means of disinvestment.He said that caretaker United Front government should have left such a decision for a duly elected government and added it is more on account of bureaucracy.
Hakeem, however, said that the short-lived United Front government had done more for the public sector than the previous Congress government that lasted for the full five years.
But we would like some concrete measures to be taken by the government, instead of just ann-ouncements, he said and regretted that autonomy to the public sector units had not trickled down despite the government announcing the navratna and miniratna packages of financial and functional autonomy months before.
Stating that reforms and restructuring of PSUs should not be delayed any further, Hakeem said the commission should be given the charge of implementation of disinvestment more as a means of corporatisation and commercial operation of the state-owned sector.
He also criticised the government for not acceding to the commissions recommendations of setting up a disinvestment fund to plough back the divestment proceeds for furtherance of PSUs.
Describing Ramakrishna as an authority on PSUs, Hakeem said he must be given freedom and wherewithal to evaluate and implement the disinvestment process. While setting up disinvestment commission as an advisory body in 1996, the government had given it powers to finalise financial advisors and assigned specific roles in the implementation stages.