We
are not in
a hurry !
That seems to be the attitude of India’s Union Governments
of the past 32
years
Look at the following news in today’s Economic Times :
The
government has kicked off the process of selling its entire stake in Scooters India -marking
the beginning of strategic sale of loss-making and non-core public sector
entities that also has Air India on the list.
The
Department of Heavy Industries has invited global expressions of interest
(EoIs) for strategic divestment of entire 93.74% government stake in the
company.
The
EoIs have to be submitted by May 7, 2018. Lucknow-based Scooters India (SIL), which manufactures
three wheelers under brand name Vikram, made a net loss of Rs 10.3 crore in FY17 against a profit of Rs
5.48 crore the year before. The company’s share closed flat at Rs 53 on Monday.
The
Department of Investment and Public Asset Management has appointed Resurgent
India as the adviser to manage the transaction. Before the disinvestment, the
company will hive off off non-core land of 89.69 acres out of its total land
bank of 147.499 acres.
The
government has already given in-principle approval to strategic disinvestment
of 17 central public sector undertakings. These include Pawan Hans, Bharat Earth Movers, Dredging Corporation of India and Air India.
The selection is based on a criteria devised by
NITI Aayog – “high priority” and “low priority” based on national security,
sovereign function at arm’s length, and market imperfections and public
purpose. Those falling in the ‘low priority’ are in the strategic disinvestment
list.
This news reminded me of the following letter ( there
were no emails in 1986
) , that I sent to 7,500 employees of
L&T ( Powai Works ) :
28 Feb 1986
Dear Friends,
FLOGGING A DYING HORSE
The correct
idiom is "flogging a dead horse" but there is every possibility
that the horse ( Scooters
India – SIL ) is dead by
now.
This is
because the enclosed article about SIL is almost 18
months old.
And as
of Dec. 31, 1985, we have such 93,282 dying ( or
dead ?) horses in our country.
These are
known as "sick
units". What I do not know is whether the
above mentioned figure includes public-sector ( Govt
owned ) sick-units or not.
Most of these
are sick - in fact VERY SICK.
If you wish to know
how "sick", here are some "temperature-readings".
|
No.
|
Govt. unit
|
Loss in last 3yr
( Rs CRORES)
|
|
1.
|
Engineering Projects
India Ltd.
|
90.0
|
|
2.
|
Hindustan Steelworks
Const. Ltd.
|
67.0
|
|
3.
|
Cycle Corporation of
India Ltd.
|
8.8
|
|
4.
|
Scooters India Ltd.
(SIL)
|
50.0
|
|
5.
|
Tanneries &
Footwear Corp. of India Ltd.
|
53.0
=================
|
I
understand that the Govt. is
planning to wind-up (close-down) the first 3
units and merge the remaining 2 units with some successful
public or private sector company.
From the
"Dying Horse" article, we find that neither Bajaj
nor HMT want to even touch Scooters India !
And no wonder
!
A similar
company in America would perhaps employ 500 persons whereas Scooters
India has employed 3500 persons'.
Reminds me of
Bombay Municipality ( BMC ) .
If BMC can
sack half of its employees, productivity would go up FOUR
TIMES
If you do not
believe me, next time stop and count the number of
persons pretending to dig a hole for a faulty telephone cable
And talking of
surplus labour, HSCL has 12000 ! ( See following article )
How long before
some of us muster enough courage to ask
"
Am I my brother's keeper ? "
I only hope it does not take another 32 YEARS , to dispose off all of our loss making PSUs, which ,
successive governments managed to keep alive on a “ Life Support System “ (
read : tax payers’ money )
20 March 2018
www.hemenparekh.in
/ blogs
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