PSU

Full-time chairmen for rly PSUs

Move to help Container Corporation of India attain Navratna status

Disha Kanwar / New Delhi May 29, 2012, 00:45 IST

 The Ministry of Railways may be the last to jump on to the bandwagon, but it, too, has accorded corporate autonomy to its companies. The posts of managing directors of railway public sector companies would soon be upgraded to those of chairmen-cum-managing directors.

With this, the Container Corporation of India would attain Navratna status, enabling the board of the Bombay Stock Exchange-listed company to have greater financial autonomy. The railway ministry would be the last to conform to the guidelines of Department of Public Enterprises (DPE), which had asked central public sector enterprises (CPSEs) to have full-time chairmen and managing directors, and not the secretary of the administrative ministry, on the boards of these companies. All other ministries already follow DPE norms and have full-time chairmen on their boards.

“The railway ministry was the only one which did not follow these guidelines, on the pretext of dependence of CPSEs on the working of the railways,” said a railway official.