Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to convene meeting of heads of over 20 CPSEs soon

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is likely to convene soon a meeting of heads of CPSEs, mainly Maharatnas and Navratnas, to discuss issues such as investment plans, capital expenditure and autonomy and empowerment of government-run companies.

"The Prime Minister is likely to convene soon a meeting of chiefs of more than 20 central public sector enterprises (CPSEs), including Maharatnas and Navratnas, to discuss key issues and suggest ways to address them," an official source told PTI.

Besides, representations would be given by other PSUs, including sick ones, to the Prime Minister for consideration, the source added.

Minister for Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises Praful Patel would also attend the meeting.

India has around 260 CPSEs, including 60 sick units. With a total income of Rs 18.2 lakh crore, CPSEs accounted for 34.8 per cent of country's GDP in 2011-12.

"The meeting would give an opportunity to heads of PSEs like ONGC, NTPC and BHEL to convey their views to the Prime Minister on several issues like autonomy and empowerment of CPSEs," the source said.

Issues like disinvestment plans, future investment plans and capital expenditure, professionalism in boards as well as their plan to go global would be discussed.

In October last year, for the first time the Prime Minister had convened a meeting of the captains of public sector undertakings (PSUs).

As on March 2012, CPSEs had a whopping cash and bank balance of Rs 2.8 lakh crore.

Industry sources said that enhanced investment by PSUs would provide the required push to slowing industrial and economic growth.

After recording modest growth of 2.8 per cent in July, India's industrial output slowed down sharply to 0.6 per cent in August mainly on account of a contraction in manufacturing and mining.

The Reserve Bank has scaled down India's growth projection to 4.8 per cent for the 2013-14 fiscal from 5.7 per cent estimated earlier.