8. Financial Performance of PSEs in India (with focus on Disinvestment and MoU): Concluding Observations

The objective of this chapter is to provide a brief summary of main findings of the study. The study covers 209 non-financial central public sector enterprises (PSEs) in India for the time span of two decades (i.e., 1991–1992 to 2010–2011); this period has been divided into different sub-phases for different purposes. The findings of the study have been summarized; they are related to the assessment of financial performance of the central PSEs, disinvested PSEs, MoU PSEs, and impact of recession. Based on the major findings, some concrete suggestions/recommendations have been made for the government/management of PSEs for their better functioning. The chapter also contains major implications and recommendations of the study.

Three major recommendations are as follows: (1) The government should henceforth aim at strategic disinvestment as small and modest sizes of disinvestment are not likely to be fruitful; (2) MoU should be mandatory for all the PSEs (instead of the current practice of its being voluntary in nature); and (3) the government’s intervention in the operational functioning and managerial decision making should be a matter of last resort.