Govt. committed to give ‘Public Sector Enterprises’ flexibility: Mukherjee

NEW DELHI - Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has said that the Central Government is committed to give ‘Public Sector Enterprises’ the necessary flexibility and autonomy to operate effectively in a competitive environment.

“Government has already delegated more powers to the Boards of Navratna and Miniratna companies in order to facilitate further improvement in their performance,” said Mukherjee, while addressing an august gathering on the occasion of presentation of the India Pride Awards 2010 instituted by the Dainik Bhaskar Group here on Monday.

“The government has also implemented revised salaries for executives of Public Sector Enterprises and introduced innovative measures such as performance related pay. These incentives for the employees have been linked to individual, group as well as company performance,” he added.

Mukherjee said that the government is also encouraging the listing of Public Sector Enterprises on the stock markets as this would unlock the true value of a company, improves its corporate governance standards and also help it in raising resources for funding future expansion plans.

“As far as sick and loss making organizations are concerned, the government has made efforts to restructure and revive them, wherever this is possible. Government will continue to take steps to strengthen the public sector to enable it to play the role expected of it in a modern, fast growing economy,” said Mukherjee.

Mukherjee further said former Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru realized that modernization and technological development were vital to the growth of the nascent Indian economy and the government took upon itself the task of establishing strategic industries.

“Public sector enterprises became the pillars of the economy while the government concentrated on providing basic public goods and building much needed socio-economic infrastructure to our teeming rural and urban population,” said Mukherjee.

“It is commendable that the public sector undertakings have come a long way despite the fact that these public sector undertakings had to start operations at a time when the economy had very low level of saving and investment, weak industrial base and near absence of infrastructure facilities,” he added. (ANI)