Prakash Javadekar, the Minister of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises addressed questions regarding Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) on February 8, 2021. According to the minister, the Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs) had a turnover of Rs.24,61,321 crore in the year 2019-20. Out of the total CPSEs, 171 are profitable achieving a profit of Rs.1,38,112 crore. The minister also provided detailed information on the revenue incurred by the Navratna CPSEs under the annexure attached to the answers.
The ministry on Monday, February 8, 2021, stated in parliament that there exists a total of 256 operational CPSEs in the country. Their total turnover in the financial year 2019-20 was Rs.24,61,321 crore. 171 out of the total 256 PSUs are profitable making who have managed to gain a profit of Rs.1,38,112 crore. All this information was furnished by the CPSEs to the concerned department.
Mr. Javadekar, further provided the information of the revenue earned from operations by all the Navratna PSUs during the financial year 2019-20. Along with this, their Profit earned before taxes or PBT and profit earned after tax or PAT was also mentioned. He also stated that according to the information provided by the Navratna PSEs, no cost-cutting efforts were taken resulting in unemployment.
Annexure 1 attached to the answers contained a list of 14 CPSEs along with their revenue and profit details. CPSEs such as REC Limited, Hindustan Aeronautics Limited and Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited incurred a significant amount of revenue after operations. PSUs like PFC Limited, REC Limited and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited gained massive profit in the financial year 2019-20.
The Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, announced the budget for the upcoming financial year on February 1, 2021. During her announcement, she declared that the government shall earn Rs.1.75 lakh crore from stake sale in public sector companies as well as financial institutions in the coming fiscal year. These shall include 2 PSUs, banks and a general insurance company.
The amount was observed to be lower than Rs. 2.10 lakh crore which was expected to be raised in the current financial year by disinvesting CPSE. However, the lowered amount does not come as a surprise considering the COVID-19 pandemic. The global havoc gravely impacted the government’s CPSE’s PSU stake sale reform and hence, it decided to reduce the target to Rs.32,000 crore in the revised estimation. In the fiscal year 2021-22, Rs. 1 lakh crore is expected to come from selling the government-owned stakes in public sector banks and other financial sources. The remaining Rs. 75,000 lakh crore is supposed to come from the government’s CPSE disinvestment activities.
