The top officer of the Standing Conference of Public Enterprises (SCOPE), the apex body of public sector enterprises (PSEs) in the country, has sought more functional and operational autonomy to PSEs.

In a meeting with chief executives and directors of member-PSEs based in the eastern region on Monday, SCOPE chairman CS Verma said the industrial environment in the country is very dynamic, and sought more functional and operational autonomy for PSEs to make them match global competitiveness. This would enhance their contribution to growth of Indian economy, he said.

The agenda of the meeting was to identify issues of concern in the region, galvanise central PSEs to overcome their constraints and emerge competitive to increase their contribution to the economy, according to a media release.

Verma said SCOPE would try and act as the “voice of PSEs and enhance its policy advocacy efforts in order to resolve the issues and concerns of PSEs at appropriate levels in government”. He also emphasised the need to extend the “right enablers” among PSEs which needs to be turned around into profit-making organisations.

Verma, who has been taking the initiative of activating regional chapters of SCOPE to evolve a consensus and agenda of common issues affecting their performance and competitiveness, said SCOPE would soon undertake an international study on the functioning of effective PSEs in different countries. This, he said, would be done to develop the best model for PSEs to keep pace with changes taking place across the world.

At the meeting, Verma said the suggestion of setting up of a public sector academy for leveraging the talent pool in the public sector for competency building of senior and middle-level executives at the induction level would be explored shortly. SCOPE would also provide a platform for information and knowledge sharing among PSEs in areas of human resource, technology development, skill development etc., to facilitate these enterprises to learn the best practices from each other.

There are 35 PSEs in the eastern region with a total turnover of Rs 1,22,117.94 crore.