CPSEs Have Shined In Past 2-year: Heavy Industry Ministry

In the two years of NDA Government rule, the Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs) have performed very well says Anant Geete, the Union Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises minister. According to the minister, in the first year of NDA rule alone, the total investments made into the 298 CPSEs went up by over Rs 1 lakh crore while the reserve and surplus went up by Rs 25,000 crore. Moreover, these CPSEs together contributed over Rs 2 lakh crore to the central exchequer by way of taxes in FY15, Geete said.

As part of the achievements and highlights of having completed two years in this ministry, the minister said that winding up the Board for Reconstruction of Public Sector Enterprises (BRPSE) in November last year was a first for the government. Also, for the first time, the government included a new category of ‘weak CPSEs’ in the guidelines issued by Department of Public Enterprises (DPE). This was done to identify CPSEs at an early stage, “before they become sick/incipient sick”, he said.

In the past 24 months, three CPSEs – Container Corporation of India, Engineers India Limited and the National Buildings Construction Corporation Limited were granted the status of Navratna companies thus enabling the boards of these CPSEs to exercise delegated operational and financial powers. As part of the changes to the working of the DPE, amendments to the allocation of business rules were made in August last year to enable DPE to monitor the capital expenditure of projects of CPSEs. “For the first time monitoring of CAPEX projects of CPSEs and also the percentage of CAPEX projects completed without time and cost over-run is being done by DPE. This has led to better spending by the CPSEs on infrastructure projects,” the ministry said.

DPE is also monitoring the CSR activities of the CPSEs from the financial year 2014-15. “An expenditure of Rs 2,448.32 crore has already been made by 126 CPSEs,” the minister said.

Citing the Survey on the performance of CPSEs that was laid in the Parliament every year during Budget session, the minister said that now there are 298 CPSEs compared to 277 in 2012-13. “The net worth of all CPSEs increased from Rs 9,45,717 crore in 2013-14 to Rs 9,84,692 crore in 2014-15 registering a growth of 4.12 per cent. There are 45 CPSEs that are listed on the stock exchange having a market capitalization of Rs 13,27,127 crore as on March 31, 2015 which is 20.35 per cent higher than the figure of Rs 11,02,730 crore as on March 31, 2014.

The ministry also cited bringing in fresh and relevant guidelines for DPE and other departments after a gap of 10-years as its highlight. “This was done with the objective of providing minimum government, maximum governance. 635 such guidelines were reviewed and a compendium containing 320 guidelines has been published in January 2016,” it said.