Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on May 8 attacked Congress and its senior party leader Rahul Gandhi for claiming that public sector undertakings (PSUs) are in a ‘disarray’ under the current government.
“Repeated claims from the @INCIndia ecosystem and @RahulGandhi in particular that Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) are being dismantled & are in disarray under the current government are a textbook example of 'Ulta Chor Kotwal Ko Daante,' as the facts reveal a very different picture,” said Sitharaman in a post on X platform (formerly Twitter).
The finance minister further claimed that under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership, PSUs have been revived as they were suffering under the previous Congress-led UPA government.
"Under the leadership of PM @narendramodi, PSUs are thriving, benefiting significantly from the culture of professionalism infused in them along with increased operational freedom," She said.
To back her claims, Sitharaman said Centre’s focus on capital expenditure and “greater alignment of management incentives” have led to a better stock performance and higher investor confidence.
Public sector banks have also recovered from the “crisis created by the UPA” with the initiatives undertaken by the government, Sitharaman said, adding that gross non-performing assets have declined to a decadal low of 3.2 percent and profits are at “record highs”.
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Highlighting the growth of public sector enterprises under the current government, the finance minister said the net profit of all the state-run companies has jumped 87 percent since FY14 to Rs 2.41 lakh crore in FY23, while the net worth rose 82 percent to Rs 17.33 lakh crore.
In terms of market performance, Sitharaman claimed that the market capital of 81 listed PSU firms has grown by 225 percent in the last 10 years, while “returns by Nifty CPSE of nearly 78.8 percent have significantly outpaced Nifty 500 (27.4 percent) and Nifty 50 (22.5 percent)”.
She also said that the investor confidence is also high and it is reflected in the CAGR ranging between 76 to 100 percent for the top 15 CPSEs. In addition, the PSU index surged over 300 percent, surpassing BSE Sensex’s 70 percent gain between 1999 and 2004, during which Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the prime minister of a BJP-led government at the centre. This, she claimed, was higher compared to 60 percent gains for PSUs compared to Sensex returns between 2009 and 2014.
Further, the BJP leader said the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited’s valuation has ‘skyrocketed’ in four years to Rs 2.5 lakh crore, recorded its highest-ever revenue in FY24 and has a ‘robust’ order book of Rs 94,000 crore.
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Sitharaman also claimed that disinvestments have not led to job losses and cited the example of Air India and few others to back her claims. She said Air India, which was privatized in 2022, was sold to the Tata group on the pre-condition that no staff will be laid off at least for a year. Since the disinvestment, the company has seen a ‘notable improvement’ in operations, the minister claimed.
She said these data show "significant fortification of institutions, rather than weakening".
"Contrary to @RahulGandhi’s claim, it was the Congress party that left India crippled, relying heavily on imports rather than empowering our own institutions like HAL. Historically, Congress has shown a lack of faith in our nation's scientists and engineers, fostering a dependency on imports that branded India as the world's largest arms importer for many years," the minister said.
India has moved away from being an import-dependent country to an arms exporter under the leadership of PM Modi, Sitharaman added.
During several of Rahul Gandhi’s election rallies, the former Congress president has attacked the BJP-led government for ‘trying to end reservation’ by selling PSU companies.
He said the NDA government is “converting state-run companies into private firms and once they are privatised, they end reservation”. Dalits and tribals are not given jobs in private companies, Gandhi claimed. “I can challenge that not a single BJP leader can say that they will not privatise PSUs or waive off loans of farmers,” the Congress leader had said during a recent poll rally. Earlier, Gandhi had also claimed that the number of jobs in the state-run firms have come down.
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