Committee on Public Undertakings

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Committee on Public Undertakings
Financial Standing Committee
16th Lok Sabha
Founded 1 May 1964;61 years ago (1964-05-01)
CountryFlag of India.svg India
Leadership
Chaiperson Baijayant Panda
Chairperson party Bharatiya Janata Party
Appointer Lok Sabha Speaker
Structure
Seats22
Lok Sabha  : 15
Rajya Sabha  : 7
Party composition   BJP (9)

   INC (2)
   AIADMK (2)
   TDP (2)
   BJD (2)
   SAD (1)
   BRS (1)

Contents

   AITC (1)
Election criteriaThe members are elected every year from amongst its members of respective houses according to the principle of proportional representation.
Tenure1 Year
Jurisdiction
PurposeExamining the reports and accounts of the Public sector undertakings(PSUs)
Rules & Procedure
  • RULES OF PROCEDURE AND CONDUCT OF BUSINESS IN LOK SABHA
Applicable rulesRule 312A & 312B (page 115 - 116)
Fourth Schedule (page 156)

The Committee on Public Undertakings (COPU) is one of three financial standing committees within the Parliament of India, composed of selected members of Parliament with the stated purpose of examining the reports and accounts of public sector undertakings (PSUs). The duties and responsibilities of the COPU are specified in the Fourth Schedule of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in Lok Sabha. [1] This committee, alongside the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and the Estimates Committee (EC), are the three financial standing committees of the Parliament of India.

The COPU consists of 22 members, 15 elected by the Lok Sabha, and not more than 7 members by the upper house, the Rajya Sabha. [1] Committee members are elected annually from among members of both houses by means of proportional representation through the single transferable vote. The chairperson of the COPU is appointed by the Lok Sabha speaker. The term of the office of the members is one year. Ministers are not eligible to become a member of the committee. If a member, after being elected to the committee, becomes a Minister, the member ceases to be a member, from the date of such appointment. [1]

History

The first proposal for a separate public sector undertakings committee was made by Lanka Sundaram in December 1953, stating the inadequacies of both the Public Accounts Committee and the Estimates Committee regarding public undertakings. [2] In May 1956, Ashok Mehta also proposed a separate committee for public undertakings, however the then finance minister held the view that the PAC and the EC were sufficient to handle the work load. By 1957, the government had agreed to form a standing sub-committee of the EC on public undertakings. In 1958, the congress formed the V. K. Krishna Menon committee. which put forward a number of recommendations intended to reconcile the accountability of public undertakings to parliament while keeping their autonomy on one hand and also ensuring efficiency on the other. [3]

In September 1963, Minister of Commerce and Industry Nityanand Kanungo, put forward a motion in the Lok Sabha proposing the formation of a separate Parliamentary Committee on Public Undertakings. In pursuance of this motion, the Committee on Public Undertakings was formed in effect from May 1, 1964.

Scope and Working

The responsibilities of the Committee on Public Undertakings are: [1]

The committee from time to time takes up for examination as such any PSU or subjects related to them as they may deem fit and which are within their terms of reference. The depth or Undertaking concerned is asked to furnish necessary material relating to those subjects for information of the Members of the Committee. The Committee may from time to time appoint one or more Study Groups for carrying out detailed examination of various subjects. [1]

Current composition

Key:    BJP (10)   INC (4)   SP (1)   AITC (1)   DMK (1)   TDP (1)   JDU (1)   SS (1)   AAP (1)   BJD (1) = 22 members

Composition of the Committee on Public Undertakings by party
  1. INC (18.2%)
  2. AITC (4.55%)
  3. SP (4.55%)
  4. BJP (45.5%)
  5. DMK (4.55%)
  6. TDP (4.55%)
  7. JDU (4.55%)
  8. SS (4.55%)
  9. AAP (4.55%)
  10. BJD (4.55%)

List of Public Undertakings

The scope of COPU is limited to the undertakings specified in the fourth Schedule to the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in Lok Sabha. They are as follows:

List of Public Undertakings specified in 2019 edition [4]
Part IPart IIPart III
Public Undertakings established by Central ActsEvery Government Company whose annual report is placed before the Houses of Parliament under sub-section (1) of Section 619A of the Companies Act, 1956

Notable probes (2014-present)

BSNL Salary ratio (2014)

The Committee on Public Undertakings noted in its report: "The staff cost was about ₹ 13,406 crore in 2011-12, that is almost 50 per cent of its revenue, which is abnormally on the higher side as compared to private companies whose expenditure is stated to be in the range of 5-10 per cent." [5]

ONGC Videsh Ltd (2014)

Based on the performance audit done by C&AG presented in report no. 28 for the year 2010-11, the COPU had the following findings: "Due to unrealistic estimation of reserves/production, OVL has suffered a huge loss of Rs.1182.14 crore during the period 2008-09 and 2009-10. Since OVL did not chose to farm-out part of its stake to a local partner, the entire loss has been borne out by it," [6] Following up in August 2015, COPU stated; "Except reiterating its earlier reply OVL has not offered any justification for its ill-conceived decision not to farm-out part of its stake in IEC to local Russian firms/ entities and its unrealistic estimation of oil reserves and production targets." [7]

Chairpersons

Chairpersons of the committee till date[ citation needed ]

Sr. No.NameTerm of officeTermsPolitical party

(Alliance)

1 P. Govinda Menon 1964-662 INC
2 Dwarka N. Tiwary 1966-671 JNP
3 Surindra Nath Dwivedy 1967-681 PSP
4 G. S. Dhillon 1968-691 INC
5 Mansinhji Rana 1969-723
6 Subhadra Joshi 1972-731
7 Amrit Nahata 1973<1
8 Nawal Kishore Sharma 1973-763
9 Darbara Singh 1976-771
10 Jyotirmoy Basu 1977-792 CPI(M)
11 Bapu Kaldate 1979-801 JD
12 Bansi Lal 1980-822 INC
13Madhusudan Vairale1982-853
14 Vazhappady K. Ramamurthy 1985-872
15 Vakkom Purushothaman 1987-903
16 Basudeb Acharia 1990-911 CPI(M)
17 A. R. Antulay 1991-932 INC
18 Vilas Muttemwar 1993-952
19 Kamal Chaudhary 1995-961
20 G. Venkatswamy 1996-982
21 Manbendra Shah 1998-991 BJP
22 Vijay Kumar Malhotra 1999-20045
23 Rupchand Pal 2004-095 CPI(M)
24 V. Kishore Chandra Deo 2009-112 INC
25 Jagdambika Pal 2011-143
26 Shanta Kumar 2014-195 BJP
27 Meenakshi Lekhi 2019-212
28 Santosh Gangwar 2021-243
29 Baijayant Panda 2024-incumbent1

Longest serving chairpersons of COPU

Sr. No.NameTermsYearsParty
1 Vijay Kumar Malhotra 51999-2004 BJP
2 Rupchand Pal 52004-09 CPI(M)
3 Shanta Kumar 52014-19 BJP

Reports

Since the inception of the COPU, it has presented 604 reports till date. Of these, 301 are original reports, and 303 are reports on actions taken by the Government in response the original reports made by the COPU. Out of those 301 original reports, 37 are horizontal studies on various aspects of working of the public undertakings.[ citation needed ]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Chairperson of the committee for the current year.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 RULES OF PROCEDURE AND CONDUCT OF BUSINESS IN LOK SABHA (PDF) (16th ed.). New Delhi: M/s Jainco Art India. April 2019. pp. 150–151.
  2. ↑ Arora, Ramesh K; Goyal, Rajni (1996). Indian Public Administration: Institutions and Issues (Revised 2nd ed.). New Delhi: New Age International. p. 522. ISBN   9788173280689.
  3. ↑ "A Committee is Born" (PDF).
  4. ↑ RULES OF PROCEDURE AND CONDUCT OF BUSINESS IN LOK SABHA (PDF) (16th ed.). New Delhi: M/s Jainco Art India. April 2019. pp. 195–196.
  5. ↑ "BSNL's salary outgo rises to ₹ 13,406 crore". NDTV. May 5, 2013. Retrieved June 4, 2023.
  6. ↑ "Parliamentary panel seeks review of ONGC Videsh's Imperial Energy acquisition". NDTV. February 7, 2014. Retrieved June 4, 2023.
  7. ↑ "Parliament Panel Raps OVL for Imperial Energy acquisition". NDTV. August 10, 2015. Retrieved June 4, 2023.
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