Chidambaram asks PSUs to unlock full potential of PSEs

23 June 2007

New Delhi: The Union finance minister, P Chidambaram, on Friday asked public sector enterprises (PSEs) to unlock the full potential of their human resources even as he suggested that more PSEs should go in for listing on stock exchanges to realise their true enterprise value.

"Today, successful companies value their enterprise by putting a value on their human resource. PSEs hide their value and one of the values they successfully hide is the quality of its human resources," Chidambaram said in his address at a navratna investiture ceremony here.

However, Chidambaram said that the only way to unlock value was to give PSEs more autonomy, make them accountable and remunerate their employees as they should be remunerated in any competitive environment.

The Finance Minister conferred navratna status on three central PSEs (CPSEs) — Bharat Electronics Ltd, Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd and Power Finance Corporation Ltd.

A navratna status would enhance the financial and administrative powers of the CPSEs'' boards.

With these three CPSEs getting navratna certificates, the number of CPSEs with navratna status has increased to 12.