The CPSTU and the public sector workers in general, view the governments policy of hostility towards public sector and related economic policy measures as one having dangerous and disastrous consequences on the national economy which got reflected during last eight years’ experience of the post liberalisation period. Right from signing of the WTO agreement at Marrakech by the then government to the hasty passage of the Patent Act in parliament few months back, successive slashing down of the customs duty on import to the advantage of the foreign companies with no concession (rather steep increase in many cases) in excise duties on the PSU products, discrimination and debarment against PSUs in respect of orders from government departments and other PSUs, stoppage of budgetary support to PSUs in case of urgent need, refusal of government to invest for revival and modernisation of sick PSUs even in respect of potentially viable ones on the plea of resource crunch while allowing the big monopoly and corporate houses to plunder public fund by deliberate default in paying back the Bank/FI loan, and reckless drive for privatisation of profit making PSUs at any cost and by any means—all are aimed at completely dismantling the public sector network of the country, besides faithfully arranging space for the foreign companies in the Indian market, which by no means serve the interest of the country, in the least. Many of the state governments are also following the same anti-PSU policies causing irreparable damage to the economy in several sectors.

The causes of sickness of PSUs are the negligence of authorities and the ruling polity and undue political and bureaucratic interference which are rooted in the disastrous economic policies pursued by the successive governments instead of taking steps to revive the sick units, the government of the day has decided to close down eight sick PSUs ignoring the fact that the cost of closure is much more than the cost of revival. On the other hand, the profit making PSUs which are major contributors to our national exchequer, are being sought to be handed over to Foreign and Indian private companies through mad drive of disinvestment and strategic sale, and by, so called restructuring and joint venture exercises. Disinvestment in PSUs is being done only to meet the budgetary deficit. The government is extending undue financial and administrative support even to the deliberately defaulting and tax-evading private sector companies and also to the foreign companies quite liberally at the cost of public sector and for that matter at the expense of the economic sovereignty of the country.

And such disastrous policies have been casting negative impact in all the sectors of the economy, not to speak of PSUs alone Grim prospects of closure and privatisation of telecom, defence production etc, has also been affecting the operation and survival of many other industrial and ancillary units down the line and also the large section of population attached to those units. Kindly note, contrary to all expectations and forecasts by the policy makers and their ideologues, during last couple of years, the negative impact of the anti-PSU policies being followed by the government at the centre got clearly reflected in all round slowdown of the economy, loss of employment, poor revenue collection, sharp decline in industrial growth and sharp increase of net outflow of resources from the country.

CPSTU is of the considered opinion that all those policies towards public sector are squarely anti national in character and warrant immediate reversal. CPSTU opines that in the interest of the self reliant growth of the country’s economy, the government at the centre must revise its policies to ensure, inter alia, 1) revival of the sick public sector units and necessary investment for the same and constitution of a permanent (rotating) fund for the purpose, 2) strengthening of all PSUs with positive policy support, 3) regular flow of order to PSUs, 4) protection from unfair and unequal competition from foreign companies and ensuring level playing field for the PSUs, 5) not allowing foreign and monopoly capital in the insurance sector and other vital and strategic sectors of the economy, 6) stringent action against dumping of foreign products in Indian market, 7) forthwith stoppage of disinvestment of PSU shares along with scrapping of Disinvestment Commission and 8) re-tuning the financial/fiscal/ revenue policies in those directions.