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G V Ramakrishna flays Centre's indifference to divestment panel

Disinvestment Commission Chairman G V Ramakrishna today regretted that the Centre had failed to take necessary steps to implement various recommendations made by the Commission.

Speaking on the role of bureaucrats in the liberalised economy at the Direct Taxes Regional Institute in Bangalore, he said public sector units continued to be a drain on the country's economy with accumulated losses of over 100 of the 241 undertakings touching Rs 30 billion.

He regretted that the government did not implement the Commission's recommendation to delink divestment from the Budget proposals and said this would have a disastrous effect.

He said the reforms did not succeed in attracting the necessary private investment in the power sector while in the telecom sector, instead of expanding the capacity and making telephone affordable to people, the private sector had bid for huge licence fees that had rendered it impractical.