Public Sector Enterprises in India- Journey Through the Changing Decades

Abstract

In today's changing times, every country is known by the business scenario prevailing there and India is no exception to it. The country has been having not-so-encouraging business scenario since the Raj days especially due the over-interference of a foreign regime which had no interest in the well being of this nation. However, the situation has changed/or the better but not to the extent as the purists would have wanted it to and there exist reasons/or the same, more so in the public secto1'. At the same time, the public sector enterprises have been playing a dominant and unique role in industrial growth and development of the Indian economy. Owing to the profit-driven mind-set of the private sector, regional imbalances have created zones of impressive growth which contrast with zones of chronic under-development. Due to this, the government went in/or direct participation in as well as regulation of business and hence set up public enterprises in the fields of tactical and economical significance. However, the performance of most public sector enterprises has been below the planned targets. Thus, there exists a considerable need to examine and analyze the operational aspect of select public sector enterprises as there are a number of tough challenges amongst public sector units, posing a threat to survival thus leading to closer of a good number of them. Therefore to sustain, the management of these public enterprises needs to work on various issues simultaneously. This paper would delve upon analytically on such issues which bog these enterprises the most. The authors have tried to paint a picture of the current standing of the public sector vis-a-vis their past performance and what this trend indicates about thefi,ture of Indian economy.