By Nitya Chakraborty
The central public sector enterprises, especially the blue chip ones, which have made good reserves through their consistent growth profile, are now targeted by the Modi government to pay for the policy lapses of the NDA regime. These companies like the ONGC, IOC as also the SBI and the LIC are paying the price of being profitable and high worth organizations under the administration of Narendra Modi.
The premier PSE ONGC is the major example of the anti-public sector approach of the present government. The situation has reached such a state in the finances of the ONGC that due to the Government’s continuous intervention in the last four and half years, the debt of the ONGC rose to Rs.1,11,533 crore at the end of the financial year 2017-18 as compared to Rs.55,619 crore at the end of fiscal 2016-17.The ONGC Employees Mazdoor Sabha in a memorandum to the Prime Minister has alleged that the once cash rich PSE has reached a position of near bankruptcy as a result of the policies of the centre in the recent years. The Sabha has also mentioned that the ONGC is taking overdraft from the banks to pay the salaries of the staff’.
According to the employees, all these financial problems are taking place because of the Government forcing the ONGC to take some decisions which are causing heavy losses to the company. In 2016, the Modi government forced the ONGC to acquire gas blocks in Krishna Godavari basin belonging to Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation for a total consideration of Rs. 8,000 crore. This, despite the fact that the GSPC’s discovery in 2005 did not result in any production as late as 2015 even after a large investment of more than Rs.19,000 crore. The experts knew that the oil and gas with economic potential would not be available from this block, but still to serve the political interests of the BJP led Gujarat government, the centre forced the ONGC management to take over this barren block for discovering oil and gas.
Last year, the petroleum ministry, at the instance of PMO prepared a plan to offer 60 per cent participating interest to private players inn 11 fields of ONGC and 4 of Oil India Ltd for raising production in these so called ageing fields. But the studies made by the ONGC scientists say that these fields considered for private investment are among the better performing and the ONGC itself has spent a lot of funds for enhancing production from these fields. Losing them would mean a drop of 15 per cent in annual output for the ONGC while the private players will get returns on the basis of investments made by the public sector ONGC.
ONGC has got the best geo scientists and oil engineers of the country. The PMO has given no heed to their assessment and suggestions and has changed the policy to favour the private oil companies. Interestingly, the petroleum ministry has not been transparent in evaluating the performance of its own company as against the private companies which have failed in so many targets in KG-D6 oil basin. The Association of Scientific & Technical Officers (ASTO) of ONGC has sought similar evaluation for the private oil company’s fields.
The ONGC executives have sought a review of the process and they rightly want that the poor field performance index talked about ONGC oil fields is appropriately applied to the private oil fields also before arriving at any decision. The policies of the Modi government in the oil sector are showing a dangerous trend and it will bring disaster to the national oil industry which was founded by the visionary like K. D. Malaviya at the instance of the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. The PMO, at the instigation of the Prime Minister himself forced ONGC to handle the GSPC in 2016. It was not a profitable proposition and ONGC was coerced to opt for this. Now, the ONGC is incurring heavy costs without any tangible returns.
Equally disastrous, if not far more, is the decision of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi to jettison the country’s premier defence manufacturing company Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) from the Rafale deal at the last minute and replacing this public sector by Anil Ambani’s Reliance Defence. Prime Minister took the decision himself to damage the future of India’s one of the public sector jewels when 95 per cent of the process of the deal involving HAL, was completed. Even before the visit in April 2015, foreign secretary S, Jaishankar said that” In terms of Rafale, my understanding is that there are discussions underway between the French company, our ministry of defence, and the HAL which is involved in this.” HAL was involved in the discussions till a few days before the visit. HAL has been denied a work in which it has expertise and in which the French company was also interested. It could have been a showpiece of perfect Make in India programme.
Defence manufacturing is one of the priority sector identified under Make in India initiative which aims at increasing the manufacturing industry contribution in national GDP to 25 per cent. As a major defence aerospace defence sector enterprise in the country, HAL has taken a number of initiatives.HAL has given thrust on design and development to encourage indigenization of components, accessories and systems required for manufacture as well repair and overhaul of aircraft, engines and associated systems.HAL was a perfect Indian partner for the Rafale deal and the French company Dassault CEO Eric Tappier was happy in having discussions with such an experienced public sector company like HAL but to the misfortune for HAL, Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not allow this to happen.HAL was dumped to accommodate a greenhorn in defence manufacturing in the last minute.
What was most shocking was that Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman did something unprecedented. She openly defamed her Ministry’s high tech undertaking Hindustan Aeronautics Limited for its technological incompetence to defend the selection of Anil Ambani’s new company as the offset partner in the Rafale deal. Defence Minister in her interaction with the women journalists in Delhi last month remarked that the HAL did not have required capability to produce Rafale and further later she observed that HAL and Dassault could not agree on production terms, so they could not go together. The responsibility of not concluding the agreement lay with the UPA government and not her government.
Defence Minister’s scathing attack on the capability of HAL has been immediately contested by the recently retired Chairman of the PSU T. Suvarna Raju in his interview to a leading daily the next day. He said “When HAL can build a 25 tonne Sukhoi 30 from raw material stage, then what are we talking about? We could have definitely done Rafale”.
If the concerned Minister talks negatively about her own PSE as compared to a private company, then the Indian PSEs can not expect any positive thrust from this regime for their growth. (IPA Service)
The post Modi Govt Is Consistently Crippling The Central Public Sector Units appeared first on Newspack by India Press Agency.
