Kerala - Kochi   

Antony: PSUs will be strengthened

Staff Reporter

Says public sector banks should stay

KOCHI: The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government will take all possible measures to strengthen public sector units (PSUs) and the allegation that the Government was selling out PSUs was politically motivated, Union Defence Minister A.K. Antony said here on Sunday.

Inaugurating the formation meeting of the Employees and Pensioners Congress, Mr. Antony said that the Government had recently come up with proposals for salvaging PSUs such as FACT, HMT and the Hindustan Newsprint Factory at Velloor. The Government does not have the policy of privatising all the sectors. Public sector banks should not be privatised, he said.

At the same time, setting up of more PSUs might not be possible as there was limitation to the growth potential of these organisations. Setting up more PSUs could be considered only at a time when the existing PSUs were making profit, he said.

Private sector has been allowed in some sectors, where only the PSUs existed. There was also the case of joint sector firms coming up in some areas. These changes had caused concern in some sections of society.

Permitting the private sector in some areas did not mean that there was no need for PSUs.

The public sector units were the backbone of the country, he said.

The Manmohan Singh Government has taken steps for the appointment of the 6th pay commission for the employees without waiting for the employees to raise the demand, he said.

In his presidential address, Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee president Ramesh Chennithala said that the Government employees of the State would soon launch agitations against the anti-employee attitude of the State Government. The Government was adopting a step motherly attitude towards the employees, he said.

DCC president V.J. Poulose; K.P. Dhanapalan, former Ernakulam DCC president; Idukki DCC president P.T. Thomas; KPCC general secretaries M.K. Raghavan and Ajay Tharayil, K. Babu, MLA, and Kambara Narayanan, trade unionist, were among those who attended.

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