Govt to review working of ‘loss making’ SPSEs: CM

Syllad | The Rising MeghalayaSeptember 27, 2021

Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma on Monday admitted the need to review the working of the State Public Sector Enterprises (SPSEs) in the state.

Speaking to media persons on the issue, Sangma said, “It is a known fact that we face a lot of challenges when it comes to the public sector undertakings and this has been there for quite some time.”

He said this is the reason why the government has started taking steps related to the Mawmluh Cherra Cements Limited (MCCL), which has been identified as one of the loss making PSUs.

“And today we are going ahead trying to restructure and reform and bring in private equity into this so that we can see how we could review as suggested by CAG…,” Sangma said.

He added, “Similarly, when it comes to the Khadi Board, we realize they have a very good asset and land right at the heart of the city so we realise that we should convert that into a Khadi plaza so that revenue can be earned.”

His statement came in the wake of the recommendation made by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) on the need for the state government to review the working of the SPSEs to either improve their profitability or close their operations.

The CAG in its report said the aggregate paid-up capital and accumulated losses of 16 working state public sector enterprises (SPSEs) as per their latest finalized accounts as on September 30, 2020 were Rs 4,605.73 crore and (-) Rs 2,747.35 crore respectively.

Analysis of investment and accumulated losses of these SPSEs revealed that the accumulated losses of seven working SPSEs (Rs 2,159.69 crore) had completely eroded their paid-up capital (Rs 1,147.33 crore), it added.

The CAG had also stated that the overall losses of power sector State Public Sector Enterprises (SPSEs) are a drain on the state’s economy and resources.

It said that during the last four years (2016-17 to 2019-20), the overall losses of power sector SPSEs have increased by more than two folds from Rs 234.92 crore (2016-17) to Rs 478.54 crore (2019-20).

When asked, the Chief Minister said, “Yes, we are reviewing all these aspects as I said this is not something that just happened, in almost every report that comes out in CAG in the past many years they have referred to the fact that the PSUs have not been able to perform at the level that they should be, they are a burden.”

“These aspects are there but they have the utility at certain point, we cannot completely ignore and say that they are completely not doing anything, they are, there are challenges, there are reforms that need to be done, improvement needs to be done and we are doing whatever we can starting in small ways…like i said MCCL we have started, Khadi board we have started so similarly in other PSUs also we will do similar measures to see how we could improve the situation,” he stated.