"Administrative ministries can't be entrusted with privatisation," he told The Financial Express. "Only a separate body with proper mandate to privatise in, say, two years will be able to perform satisfactorily."This seems to imply that the Disinvestment Commission is not the organisation which can deliver the goods.

Earlier speaking at a Ficci seminar on the restructuring of PSUs, Ahluwalia listed three areas which have "different degrees of consensus." First, there are perennially loss-making PSUs for which there is no hope for revival or survival.

"There may be difference of opinion regarding the number of such units," but government policy is that they should be shut down.

Then there are PSUs, the plan panel member said, which are not in the red, but sometimes they incur losses. He favoured their privatisation for thesake of social development.

The government should have social assets rather than industrial ones, but there is not much consensus on this issue, he said. "Nobody will shut schools and hospitals to buy shares, but not many people will go the other way round," he said.

In the third area are profit-making PSUs. Despite the belief of liberalisers, consensus does not exist on the issue of their privatisation, Ahluwalia pointed out.

He said that there is little willingness in the public mind for privatisation of profit-making PSUs. He alluded that this perception may be because of the lack of good corporate governance in the private sector."We should recognise the fact that there is uncertainty in the mind of the public," he said.

The issue of privatisation has created "more than general amount of confusion" because we did not start treading on this path with clear objectives in mind, though we are "gradually" recognising them, Ahluwalia said.

Even in the United Kingdom, Margaret Thatcher faced problemsinitially, he added.

Tony Baldry, an MP from the UK who was a member of the Thatcher cabinet, said, "For her, privatisation was a matter of conviction, not of political or economic expediency."

In India, it is the other way around. PSUs were allowed to bleed the public exchequer, and only when the things came to a head that privatisation has been looked into seriously.

Baldry, however, was convinced: privatisation is a fait accompli. "Whether you go for it out of conviction or in duress, you have to go for it."