Indian Express: Pune: Sunday, 31 May 2015.
Located on
the ground floor of the Sugar Commissionerate building, the Maharashtra Cooperative
Development Corporation (MCDC) has not had any visitor for more than six years.
The MCDC, whose premises are now used by the office of the cooperatives
department, is one of the 22 non-working public sector units (PSUs) run by the
state government.
As per reply
to an RTI query filed by The Sunday Express, of the 87 state-run public sector
units, 22 are not working while 18 are loss-making enterprises. In PSUs, the
government owns not less than 51 per cent of the paid-up capital.
Of the 87
PSUs, 10 are in the field of power, 16 in finance, nine in manufacturing, 11 in
infrastructure, seven in agriculture, four in services and four other in
miscellaneous activities. The state also has four statutory corporations, one
each in finance, agriculture, services and infrastructure. The government
appoints both the chief executive officer and board of directors of these
companies.
As of the
last financial year, these working companies employed around 2.05 lakh people
and their total turnover was Rs 77,426.56 crore.
MCDC and the
Western Maharashtra Development Corporation are headquartered in Pune, which is
also home to a majority of the other companies. Of the 22-non working
companies, five have their headquarters in the city. Like MCDC, these offices
are incurring expenses in terms of rent, electricity and miscellaneous other
charges.
Reports show
that till March 2014, the total investment in these PSUs amounted to Rs
97,137.39 crore, which includes long-term loans and working capital. The
investment by the government towards the non-working companies was Rs 726.98
crore.
Other than
providing for loans, the state government has been periodically writing off
loans of these corporations. In the last three years, the total loan waiver given
to these companies was Rs 20 crore.
Documents
show that the state’s accountant general, during the course of audit of these
corporations, repeatedly pointed to the non-working companies, one of which has
arrears pending for the last 15 years. In the past one year, these 22
non-working companies have together incurred an expenditure of Rs 1.62 crore in
terms of salaries etc, which was held by the accountant general as “avoidable
expenditure”.
An analysis
of the non-working companies reveals that many of them have accumulated severe
losses, which has crippled their functioning. The total accumulated losses by
these companies is around Rs 1,370 crore.
Of these 22
companies, the government has issued closure orders for 10 (accumulated losses
Rs1,291crore), but their liquidation process is yet to start.
No decision
has been taken in respect to nine companies (with accumulated losses of Rs 48.8
crore). Two companies are under liquidation and one company (Kolhapur
Chitranagari Mahamandal Limited) has received orders for revival. Even for the
working companies, the performance in terms of recovery leaves much to be
desired. Of the total Rs 207 crore due for recovery, these companies could
recover only Rs 40.45 crore. Anant Sardeshmukh, director general of Maharashtra
Chamber of Commerce Industries and Agriculture (MCCIA), said the government
should look seriously in the matters pertaining to the non-working companies.
“These companies were established with a specific goal and due to change of
time either the goal is not relevant or the companies have failed to meet
them,” he said. Sardeshmukh said many of these corporations had become
irrelevant with the passage of time. “The government should take steps to wind
up these bodies,” he said.
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