The public sector has failed but private sector is hardly an inspiration

Though private sector now creates more jobs than public sector, the scale of operations of even the giants in Indian biz has not been big enough to alter employment dynamics the way China has managed

In her Budget speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had implied that the public sector would vacate the traditional Nehruvian commanding heights of the economy with the private sector stepping in to take up the slack.

This is the basic interpretation of Ms Sitharaman’s statement that the government would minimise the presence of the central government public sector enterprises and create “new investment space for the private sector”. Central to the policy would be classifying sectors as strategic and non-strategic and ensuring a “bare minimum” public sector presence in the former.

If this policy is followed through, it implies an unprecedented