Author: Satarupa Bhattacharjya/
New Delhi
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: September 24, 2004
Bitten by the controversy of appointing
foreign agency representatives to the Planning Commission, the Centre it
seems is shy to even have domestic industry experts in the newly-constituted
board for public sector reconstruction.
Fearing another outrage from the
Left Front with regard to composition of the PSU board, the UPA Government
has "humbly submitted" a list of proposed board members to Left leaders.
And, the list does not contain names of any industry captains or for that
matter none from the private sector. In fact, Finance Minister P Chidambaram
is said to have specified to CPI and CPI(M) leaders that the "Ambanis,
Tatas, Birlas or other domestic corporates will not find a place on the
PSU reconstruction board."
The assurance, sources said, came
from Mr Chidambaram at two separate lunch and dinner meetings he hosted
for CPI(M)'s Sitaram Yechury, Prakash Karat and CPI's AB Bardhan and D
Raja on Wednesday. Sources added that Left leaders had earlier indicated
to the Government that they would not like any private sector representation
on the board which anyway would exclusively deal with ailments in the public
sector.
The board would comprise retired
chairpersons of PSUs, bankers from the public sector, economists and NGO
representatives. Going by past experiences, the Centre is likely to draw
"heavily" from the expertise of Left-leaning economists and NGOs, sources
added. Alongside fish pakoras, the Finance Minister served his guests,
a roadmap for PSU reconstruction which incidentally, is a menu, the Left
parties themselves had earlier offered to Government. As per the proposal
to be cleared by the Union Cabinet when it meets on September 29, the nation's
public companies will be categorised under four heads. The first slot would
obviously be taken by the Navratanas or financially robust firms like IOC,
ONGC and few others. The second, by profit-making companies to be followed
by those with potential for a turnaround at the third slot and finally,
the loss-making ones. The latter, sources said, would be put on the sale
block as their revival is not an option the Government is toying with.
The Left leaders are understood to have consented to the blueprint and
asked Mr Chidambaram to move forward.
Although the top Left leadership
is said to have been convinced by the Finance Minister in this regard,
the Centre has not conceded to the Left demand that the PSU board should
be directly under the Prime Minister's Office. Sources said the Prime Minister
has asked Mr Chidambaram to inform Left leaders that the new board would
stay under the Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises Ministry. The Finance
Ministry would coordinate between different Central ministries and departments
so that the reconstruction process is streamlined. CPI, CPI(M), FB and
RSP had earlier feared neither of the two ministers could handle "PSU issues"
with the sensitivity they associated with Dr Singh. The new board is being
constituted as an intended replacement for the Board for Industrial and
Financial Reconstruction.
