Governments make statements on reforms in PSEs but so far reforms have remained ‘limited by’ statements only

DAYA SAGAR

It was in 2012 vide 0.M NO. A/Mix(2012)-P &- Dated 10.08.2012 in pursuant to the agreement reached between high powered group of Govt and members of joint consultative committee of the employees associations that J&K government through Finance Department requested Management of all the Public Sector undertakings (PSUs) to look into the demands of their employees including that of the arrears on account of the 6th Pay Commission but a proviso was also laid in a way directing that while taking any decision in this regard, the internal resource position shall necessarily be taken into consideration by the PSUs as State Govt will not bear any liability on account of the 6th Central Pay Revision or the payment of arrears on that account. Question could be asked when a PSE has to pay the wages from own sources only what for is government making such advice ? Immediately after that it was reported on 18-10-2013 in media that as per The Comptroller and Auditor General of India’s report presented in the then J&K legislature on 5th April 2013 of the 16 PSU in red (total money they owed to government was mentioned as Rs. 1,450.46 crore ) where J&K Power Development Corporation topped the list with the cumulative borrowing of Rs. 816.03 crore, followed by the J&K State Road Transport Corporation (SRTC). Most of the PSEs had their accounts in arrears for years. Not only that It was reported on 23-07-2017 that according to Comptroller and Auditor General(CAG) 33 Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) of J&K state had shown accumulated loss of Rs 2433.70 crores along with 17% increase in debt during 2015-16 financial year ; out of the 33 PSUs in the state, three had become defunct and the government has been sitting on recommendations of committees to close them even when as per CAG PSUs were not contributing to the state economy and not meeting the intended objectives, 11 PSUs had shown a loss of Rs 156.69 crores during 2015-16. The CAG report while coming down heavily on the working of the PSUs also said that 7 PSUs had not submitted their accounts since their inception (J &K state forest corporation since 1996-97 ) , Debt of PSUs had increased from Rs 4429.09 crores in 2014-15 to Rs 5328.65 crores in 2015-16 With 183 accounts of PSUs being in arrears during 2015-16 the audit of only 28 accounts was done since others were not ready although Accountant General requested (May 2016) to the Chief Secretary to frame a time bound schedule to finalise the accounts but there has been no action on this front and CAG had awarded ‘unqualified certificates’ to 4 of the 28 accounts submitted by the PSUs along with pointing out a mismatch between the figures of loans and guarantees furnished by the PSUs and that of the Department of Finance , to quote PSEs had shown loan of Rs 1965.62 crores while the Finance accounts showed only loans of Rs 764.14 crores. Employees of all most all PSEs had been regularly seen demanding even payment of wages in time.
Questions were asked and are still asked in 2022 that when all most all government companies had been / and are mostly headed by CEOs who may be sent on deputation from government departments / or even if one was/is picked up ( rarely) from some PSU that too was of someone’s liking only without routing the selection through even the Bureau of PSEs why should the axe fall only on the PSE cadre families ? In October 2021 it was observed that that a number of J&K PSUs are having Managing Directors / CEO on deputation from the J&K Government like Smita Sethi a JKAS Officer on deputation is Managing Director J&K SIDCO, J&K SIDCO has not regular MD and charge is held by MD SIDCO JKAS , Arun Manhas JKAS is MD of JKSAIDC, Hashmat Ali Yatoo JKAS is MD of J&K Handicrafts (S&E), Corporation, Hashmat Ali Yatoo JKAS MD HSEC hold additional charge of Handloom & Handicrafts Corpn., Mohd Akbar Wani JKAS is the MD of Cable Car corporation Ltd , Angrez Singh Rana JKAS is the MD of JKRTC , Ajay Kumar Sharma KAS is MD of JK Financial Corporation , Mohd Saleem JKAS is MD of J&K SC, ST and OBC devt. Corpn.. Mohd Shahid Saleem Dar JKAS is MD JKHB, Vikas Kundal IAS (2013) is MD of J&KPCC, Dr. Basharat Qayoom (IAS) is Managing Director Kashmir Power Distribution Corporation Ltd (KPDCL).
The Board of Directors also comprises of most of the of members from government only. Position in September 2022 may not much different as regards the position of accounts , the management policies , CEOs , BoD’s etc. The reports of different committees appointed at occasions for study and reforms must be lying uncared . Should not the bad state of affairs be answered by the Government and not by the local PSE cadres.
No doubt LG Manoj Sinha and CS A.K. Mehta has been regularly expressing their serious concern for cultivating seriousness in the conduct of public affairs and it is being hoped that the affairs concerning the PSE enterprises of the UT too shall receive their focused attention to save any further unwanted support from the state exchequer as well as the future of the families of public sector cadres which may be living under socio-economic stresses , ofcourse with active role given to Bureau of Public Sector Enterprises.
To be Continued
(The author is a senior journalist and analyst of J&K Affairs , can be reached at [email protected]).