New Delhi, April 16: Loss-making public sector units under the department for development of the northeastern region (Doner) could soon be put through a stringent reform process to transform them into financially viable enterprises.
The units that are suffering losses include the Northeastern Regional Agriculture Marketing Corporation, Northeastern Handicrafts and Handlooms Development Corporation and the Sikkim Mining Corporation.
Union minister C.P. Thakur, who is in charge of Doner, said his department could not afford to let things drift. “Doner may face a shortage of funds in view of the slashed budget for 2003-04. So there has to be urgency in transforming these loss-making ventures into profit-making ones. An in-house study is being conducted and our strategies will be chalked out accordingly,” he told The Telegraph.
Thakur said the performances of the aforementioned three units had been “below expectation”, but all was not lost.
The Northeastern Handicraft and Handloom Development Corporation, which was set up in March 1977 with Shillong as its headquarters, is supposed to promote, develop and market the handicrafts and handloom products of the region.
Its equivalent in the agriculture sector is the Northeastern Regional Agriculture Marketing Corporation, promoted by the North Eastern Council.
The handloom corporation incurred losses to the tune of Rs 4.9 crore between 1999 and 2001. Officials said the main reason for the huge losses were high rentals for emporia, the lopsided ratio between sales and mounting overheads and financial constraints in procuring products from the Northeast.
The agricultural marketing corporation suffered losses amounting to Rs 2.45 crore during the same period.
“The problems faced by each unit are different from one another. Hence, the solutions must be different, too. The departmental study will give a broad outline of the measures that need to be adopted at the macro level. Once the exercise is completed, we might consider involving specialised firms in the task of drawing up a blueprint for revival. We may even involve them in the implementation process,” Thakur said.