With the dismal track record of several PSUs, the Centre cannot be blamed for the decision to divest. Several PSUs became white elephants serving neither a social nor economic cause. Many of them naturally became black holes for public money. They were often textbook cases of poor management and aggressive trade unionism and became umpireless playfields for political parties with myopic objectives. The manner in which the union government has been putting some of the PSUs on sale reminisces the historical facts. The Union government is in a hurry to disinvest profit-making PSUs. It certainly does not augur well for the country and its economy. Disinvestment of PSUs is an avowed policy of the Union government. This has to be done only under the situation when the PSU has been in red, eating into government revenue and failing to produce profit and revenue. Putting on sale the LIC, the largest company in terms of assets, has really come as a shock. It caters to the needs of millions of policyholders. These steps of the government point to some ulterior motives. The government’s plan to privatise PSUs is anti-worker ‘unjust decisions’ and the advisors who suggested to the government to sell PSUs a ‘predatory’. The government has no moral right or authority to sell national assets created by its predecessors.
