Sell-off has boosted productivity: Shourie

KOCHI: Union Disinvestment Minister Arun Shourie said on Saturday disinvestment has unleashed the productive potential locked up in the PSUs and is the only way to save jobs. Speaking at a day-long seminar on ''Strategic Issues of Disinvestment Policy'' here, Shourie, who is also IT and Communications Minister, said Paradeep Phosphate was losing Rs 25 crore per month when it was disinvested. Despite opposition''s criticisms that workers would lose their jobs, none of the workers were removed, he said. In three months after Paradeep Phosphate was disinvested, production went up, salaries trebled. The workers were given wage revision with retrospective effect. In IPCL, a Rs 1,000-crore expansion plan has begun, Modern Foods'' production has doubled and in Balco the wages have gone up by 20 per cent. The productive potential in all these units which had been disinvested had been ''unleashed''. This is the only way to save jobs, he added. Shourie said a separate fund was being created for using the funds raised from disinvestment, instead of utilising it for deficit financing. He said he had also urged Prime Minister AB Vajpayee to give part of the funds from disinvestment to the state in which the disinvested PSU was located. Shourie said, of the Central government''s total tax revenues, 70 per cent was being spent on paying interest on loans. Twelve state governments were unable to pay their employees'' salaries on time, two state governments open up their treasuries only for two days a month. Of the 240 Central government enterprises, about half were incurring losses and those making profits were one in which they enjoy a monopoly position, he said. He said one-third of the public enterprises were non-functional , and non performing assetsâ€�, adding India was the only country where NPAs were considered assets. Of the 119 National Textile Corporation (NTC) mills, only 25 were working and Rs 700 crore was being spent to pay wages for workers whose factories had been closed down. On the culture of unaccountabilityâ€�, he said, while the state electricity boards'' annual losses had been estimated at Rs 21,000 crore, the Delhi Vidhyut board had an accumulated loss of Rs 23,000 crore as transmission and distribution losses. That works out to 55 per cent while the world over the average transmission and distribution losses were only five to 10 per cent. It is theft and dacoity loss, he said, adding none has been hauled up due to this. Inefficiency compounded with corruption has led to the state, the country is in presently, he said. About disinvestment in oil PSUs, Shourie said: Who is favouring oil PSUs? The government was likely to go in for disinvestment in 50 PSUs, including Shipping Corporation of India and State Trading Corporation, he said, adding there was a proposal to disinvest Engineers India, but that had been withheld. VSNL should have been disinvested when it had complete monopoly and not when there were six Internet gateways. Observing that politicians have the tendency to raise baseless allegations when they are out of power, Shourie said, while the Congress was criticising him for disinvesting profit making PSUs, the Punjab government was also disinvesting profit-making enterprises. Shourie said the Kerala government was seeking ADB loans, Madhya Pradesh government had taken loans a few years ago and the Punjab government was disinvesting profit making enterprises. But all these were being done behind a burqa . On the allegation of disinvested PSUs not being able to attract foreign bidders, he said if the disinvested PSUs were given to foreign bidders, the criticisms would reach a feverish pitch and it would be alleged that Indian companies were being sold to foreigners. Shourie said foreign companies did bid for some PSUs, including IPCL, but the Indian companies had put in better bids. In the last 10 years, nearly Rs 40,000 crore had been spent for reviving sick units and the effort had not been fruitful.

Sell-off has boosted productivity: Shourie

Union Disinvestment Minister Arun Shourie said on Saturday disinvestment has "unleashed the productive potential locked up" in the PSUs and is the only way to save jobs.

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