After the central assistance for the revival of 11 sick public sector enterprises (PSE) in the state, seven of them have started making profits, said a top official from the Board for Reconstruction of Public Sector Enterprises (BRPSE).
The central government had approved the revival plans of 42 PSEs out of a total 59 CPSEs recomended by the Board for Reconstruction of BRPSE. Of this, revival plans for 11 from West Bengal had been approved till now. “Seven of them — namely Andrew Yule, BBJ, Bridge & Roof, Eastern Coalfields, Briathwaite, Hindustan Copper and Biecco Lawrie — have started making profits,” said BRPSE chairman Nitish Sengupta, after an interractive session with the chief executives from various enterprises on Friday. Other firms from the state are Bengal Chemicals, Biecco Lawrie, Burn Standard and Central Inland Waterways.
“Of the 42, 23 CPSEs have posted profit during the last financial year,” he added. BRPSE had felicitated 11 turnaround CPSEs in March 2011, that have posted profits consistently for the last three years. Total assistance approved was Rs 24,306 crore. While the cash assistance was Rs 3,712 crore, the rest was non-cash assistance. The non-cash assistance included waiver of interest and bank guarantee.
Meanwhile, he said that he was not informed about the financial status of BSNL, MTNL and ITI, for which he had proposed the merger. The merger was proposed as it was expected that BSNL can help in turning around of the other two firms.
The three companies together reported a loss of Rs 4,893 crore in 2009-2010, of which MTNL incurred the highest of Rs 2,611 crore, while BSNL Rs 1,823 crore and ITI Rs 459 crore simultaneously.