The West Bengal government has taken a fresh initiative to restructure sick public sector enterprises, though there are inherent difficulties with the Department For International Development (DFID), the British funding agency, withdrawing its funding scheme from Bengal last March.
State industry minister Partha Chatterjee, after holding a meeting with the state PSE chiefs, said 13 state-owned public sector undertakings have been asked to prepare a status paper on whose basis an action plan has to be drawn to revive the sick PSEs.
The earlier government initiated the restructuring process in 2003 as part of the DFID-supported projects. Deloitte and Touche Consulting Agency was entrusted with the job of preparing a roadmap for the restructuring. But only nine of the 25 PSEs were put to JV, while two were closed down. Sale of Great Eastern Hotels to Bharat Hotels was a landmark event in the process of restructuring. But the earlier government under political pressure slowed down its restructuring programme and left 13 PSEs un-restructured.
Chatterjee said this government was neither in favour of selling the PSEs nor was it for bringing down the workforce to make the sick units viable.
?As a matter of policy I have made it clear that there can be no job loss in the course of restructuring. Instead re-structuring has to be planned in such a way that more jobs are created,? Chatterjee said, adding ? industry is for providing jobs and not for taking away.?
He said after the 13 PSEs, which comprise Durgapur Chemicals, Gluconate Health, Britannia Engineering, Shalimar Works, State Warehousing Corporation, Saraswati Press, National Iron & Steel Company and others submitted their status paper, the issue would be taken up with the chief minister Mamata Banerjee to chalk out the plan for revival.
Though Chatterjee didn?t make clear whether the present government would engage a consultant to prepare a revival roadmap, he said there were financial implications in the revival process and it has to be taken with the finance department too. The earlier government in the course of restructuring had spent R184 crore on account of early retirement schemes, one fifth of which was borne by the DFID.
The DFID was supposed to give R350 crore grant for the entire restructuring and sanctioned R250 crore in the first phase. But till March 2011, the earlier government could not spend the entire sanctioned amount, which was meant for creating a favourable condition to restructure the PSEs.
Sources in the WBIDC told FE that around R16 crore of the DFID grant still remained unutilised and that the government might have to return the unutilised money. But the audit for the sanctioned amount was yet to be done.
Chatterjee said technology upgradation should get priority in the process of restructuring and funds would have to be arranged according to that. ?All the 13 PSEs have been asked to recast it finances and submit details of profit and loss and books of accounts,? he said.