The Hindu : Public sector must adopt restructuring: Kant

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, May 05, 2002

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Public sector must adopt restructuring: Kant

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI MAY 4. The Vice-President, Krishan Kant, today urged public sector companies to adopt restructuring as a tool to meet the challenges of competition in the new globalised environment.

Inaugurating the conference of chief executives of public sector enterprises, he said the companies were passing through a phase of crisis of confidence due to misdirected investments and failure of the managements to appreciate the need for changing corporate culture in the era of globalisation. This can be corrected by professionalising management and better governance. However, the sustained development of an enterprise would depend on the use of creative and innovative energies in governance.

Mr. Kant said a collective effort of the public sector management, trade unions and the Government would be needed to direct and manage the change in the PSEs. He emphasised on the high sense of managerial morality as one of the core values of corporate governance.

The Union Heavy Industries Minister, Manohar Joshi, said there appeared to be a propaganda unleashed against the public sector. He appealed to the chief executives to live up to the challenge and prove that the propaganda was false and motivated. He called upon them to rise up to the challenge of successfully meeting the competition by suitably restructuring and re-orienting their businesses.

Mr. Joshi said the performance of the public sector could not be measured only in terms of its financial results. Its contribution to the overall socio-economic development, building a strong manufacturing base and narrowing the regional disparities cannot be underestimated, he said adding that the public sector had performed well on all these counts.

He said the Government was committed to safeguarding the interest of workers in the best possible manner in the event of business restructuring and rationalisation of enterprises.

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