What Ails Our Public Sector Unit
The history of India's Public Sector organizations is a rich and varied one. A few of them are even established leaders in their respective fields, viz, ONGC, SAIL,IOC etc. with turnover, networth and profits running into a few thousands crores. In recent decades, a debate has raging on their privatization and charting of a new course for them in sync with the realities arising out of globalization. While some of these organization have turned in a truly phenomenal performance in terms growth and driving growth but the performance has to be judged in the light of the fact that these organizations have been allowed to operate in their respective spheres without any competition and they held monopolistic sway. Strict governmental control has characterized their functioning. In the scheme of the government their worth ranks very high and thus we frequently hear the desire of the government to offload a stake in these organizations to garner resources to narrow the deficit gap.
It would be worthwhile to examine the context in which these organizations were born. In the pre-Independence era we had fewer industries especially the presence of heavy industries was almost non-existent. Given to the natural aversion on the part of the private sector business captains to enter this field which called for investment of huge capital and long gestation period ,the government had to enter in a big way to set up heavy industries to facilitate rapid industrial development . The result was the industrial map of the country started dots of these industries all over the geographical regions of the country. Our then Prime Minister Jawharlal Nehru once proudly declared them to be “the temples of modern India”.It is not doubt true that we have come a long way in this respect. In the early years of Independence when no developed country was willing to share technologies or provide any help, realization dawned upon the leadership that investment in this core area is needed to make India self-reliant. It is worth recalling that former USSR was the only country which extended its hands of cooperation in setting up steel units in India though at a cost.
In the subsequent years, the Public Sector Units have been playing a significant role in rapid development of industries in the country. Their contribution in terms of generation of employment and other social development can not be glossed over. At the same these organizations have been plagued by many ills and one of these relates to the management. As most of these organizations are headed by career politicians who have little exposure to latest management practices and mostly treat the organizations they head as their personal fiefdoms. In the matter of selection of key personnel they promote their own men and cronies who advance their own selfish agenda at the cost of the organization.
There are many who advocate privatization as panacea to all their ills, a view which can hardly be supported. It would be just like proverbial 'fry pan into the fire' ! Our private sector is no model for efficiency and everything whatever is good. Our public sector has come into existence at a huge cost of the exchequer which is public money. The only solution lies in freeing these from being the vehicle for unfulfilled personal ambitions of the politicians and grant necessary freedom to the management to reorient the goals in the dynamic world of business.
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