Apropos the edit “More Sreedharans” (January 4), the lament that “there are few enough such names in the government or public sector” is based on limited knowledge and a sample of facts. The public sector still boasts some of the best minds and experts in project implementations in core and infrastructure sectors. The recently retired chairman and managing director of NMDC, Rana Som, can be credited with some of the biggest successes in acquiring resource assets overseas. NTPC, under former chairman and managing director R S Sharma and current incumbent Arup Roy Chowdhury, has achieved a reputation for being the best in power project implementation. S K Roongta, former chairman and managing director of Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL), is credited with turning the company around.
Subir Raha of ONGC, C P Jain of NTPC, B P Rao of Bhel and many others of their ilk have been credited for outstanding contributions as public sector undertaking (PSU) managers in recent times. Thus, the assertion in the edit that “basic managerial expertise is becoming increasingly rare” does not stand up to factual scrutiny.
The edit also misses out the point that four out of the 10 most valuable Indian companies in 2011 and eight out of 20 were public sector companies. Surely, there are still many PSU managers who are doing their job right.
One of the possible reasons for the flawed conclusion of the edit based on a Delhi-centric perception could possibly be that PSU managers and CEOs, unlike their private sector counterparts, do not have well-oiled public relations machinery for their image management. It is also not co-incidental that the three names mentioned in the edit – Krishnamurty, Sreedharan and Gujral – had long stints in Delhi, where it is easier to secure perception mileages, especially in the media. This is, however, not true for managers and CEO operating and managing core sector projects in remote locations elsewhere in the country.
Ajoy K Das Kolkata
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