The Hindu Business Line : PSU potential

While it makes good financial sense for the Government to utilise these holdings to fund domestic debt, it would also do the PSUs themselves good by giving them a free hand.

It should be borne in mind that merely disinvesting the Government’s stake will not do wonders without changing the way PSUs function.

The need of the hour in PSUs is better governance which leads to prompt decisions on critical issues such as quality, pricing and product mix.

Subha Vinoth Kumar e-mail

Still in darkness

The Power Ministry, which favours creating another public sector equipment manufacturer, has buttressed its argument saying the Eleventh Plan target of adding 76,000 MW generation capacity would not be met even if BHEL doubles output.

While this is a right assessment of the situation, it lacks the pragmatism to quantify a definite achievable figure and the means for doing so, given that only 22,500 MW was added during the Tenth Plan, the highest in the last 60 years.

Another important point that has been ignored is that most BHEL manufacturing units have an efficiency as low as 29-30 per cent against a world figure of 40-45 per cent.

A new PSU unit as visualised by the Ministry, must come up as early as possible to compete with BHEL or imports.

It must also take into account the vital aspect of increasing the efficiency of generating sets by 50 per cent to save coal, reduce cost and lead to a better and cleaner environment by inducting expertise in the latest technologies.

C. R. Bhattacharjee Kolkata