A ‘strategic sale’ of navaratna companies, which have reached the current state of excellence after decades of efforts, will be a strategic blunder (Op-Ed page, “Should the government exit navaratna companies?” Dec. 20). The public sector has for long been serving as an engine of growth and has been meeting the socio-economic purpose of providing employment to thousands of youth, especially from the downtrodden sections. Instead of contemplating the strategic sale of profit-making PSUs like BPCL for the short term goal of meeting revenue expenditure, the government should consider disinvestment of non-profit making PSUs. This would help the government as well as the economy. Selling off a navaratna company such as BPCL would be not only bad economics, but the strategy would backfire by demotivating the employees of other navaratna companies, which will have disastrous consequences for those companies as well as the economy. Dismantling public sector is easy, but building the same, that too building a navaratna company, requires long term Herculean efforts. In its eagerness to clean up the public sector and raise revenues in quick time, the government should not throw out the baby with the bathwater.
Kosaraju Chandramouli,
Hyderabad
