New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday made it clear that government was in no mood to budge from its position and continue its disinvestment programme by selling its stake in PSUs and monetising their assets.
The government has set a target to mop up Rs 1.75 lakh crore from disinvestment in 2021-22. This is substantially lower than Rs 2.1 lakh crore it had hoped to garner in FY21.
“When government monetises public assets, private sector comes in. They bring in investment as well as best global practices. Trained manpower is deployed and management change happens. As a result, there is optimum monetisation of assets. Modernisation of facilities takes place and there are new job opportunities,” Modi said.
The government is committed to privatisation of PSEs other than those in strategic sectors. Besides, we have also made it clear that even in strategic sectors there would be fewer PSEs,” he noted.
Modi also said posting bureaucrats to run public sector enterprises (PSUs) is injustice to the officers as well as state-run companies given that they are trained to run administration, welfare schemes and framing policies.
Speaking from his decades of experience in politics and aware of the issues in governance, he said that officers avoid taking commercial decisions for fear of court cases or possible scrutiny later.
“In government set-up, officers lack the courage to take commercial decisions. They fear court cases or other issues. This is the reason, there is a general thinking that things should go on at its usual way and pace. As officers have their fixed term they leave the task of decision-making on their successors,” Modi said.
Addressing a webinar on privatisation and asset monetisation, Modi emphatically justified the proposed move by the government to go for disinvestment and monetisation of public assets.
He noted that taxpayers’ money cannot be spent on funding loss-making PSUs. The Prime Minister said that public funds are meant for the welfare of the poor and meeting the aspirations of the country’s youth.
Reiterating that government has no business to be in business, Modi said that the focus of the government should be on development and public welfare.
Disinvestment and asset monetisation are the key features of the Union Budget presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on February 1. Even as opposition parties have registered their protest against massive disinvestment drive, the government has been unperturbed.