New Delhi: The government is open to privatisation of some loss-making PSUs as subsidising them with taxpayers' money cannot be a long-term solution, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said today. "Certainly, I will be open to look at some set of PSUs which could do much better in private hands," he said at the India Economic Summit here. Certain PSUs are almost on the verge of a close down and people are going to lose employment, Jaitley said, adding that given a choice between their continuing in the present shape or getting privatised, "the second option would be a preferable option".
"Currently, they are being sustained merely on a government support. That is not a long-term solution. Tax payers cannot pay for loss-making businesses. In July, the Minister had announced in the Rajya Sabha that four PSUs would have to be shut down as they were "incapable of revival". As many as 79 PSUs have, over a period of time, become loss making and the total amount of public investment stuck in these PSUs was to the tune of Rs 1.57 lakh crore, he had said, adding "over Rs 10,000 crore from the Budget have been physically pumped into to make them going."
The government has set an ambitious target of Rs 43,425 crore to be mopped up from PSU disinvestment in the current fiscal.
