Concerned over time spent by heads of public sector firms in 'boundary management', Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asked government on Wednesday to become more transparent in regulating and granting full operational autonomy to state companies.
"It should be our endeavour to empower public enterprises by easing the bureaucratic and political hold of government over them," he said after releasing a book titled 'The Indian CEO -- A Portrait of Excellence' - published by London-based HayGroup and Bharat Petroleum.
Singh said the book concludes that dealing with external environment -- defined by government in case of public sector companies and dubbed as 'boundary management'-- was the most important challenge facing public sector executives in India.
"I agree with an important conclusion of your study that the relationship between
business and the government as regulator needs to become more transparent, more predictable, less uncertain and less time consuming," he said.
The book authored by Signe M Spencer, senior consultant at HayGroup; Tharuma Rajah, Regional Director, HayGroup, Asia; S A Narayan and Seetharaman Mohan of BPCL and Gaurav Lahiri, director (strategic clients), HayGroup showed that opacity and unpredictability of the regulatory process in India were major entry barriers and a hurdle for growth.
"I share your view that rather than interfere and control, government should be a stakeholder in functioning of a public enterprise," Singh said.
He asked ministries to grant "full operational autonomy to public sector enterprises, to enable them to compete and succeed in global market." And cases where ministries encouraged the opposite, should be brought to light.