The cabinet has approved the department of public enterprises’ (DPE) revised guidelines on shutting down loss making CPSEs and disposal of movable and immovable assets.

The revised guidelines are aimed to speed up closure of sick PSUs and the guidelines will replace the old guidelines issued by DPE in September, 2016.

The guidelines provide a broad framework for expeditious completion of various processes and procedures for closure of CPSEs by laying down important milestones in the closure process along with timelines, outlining the responsibilities of the concerned ministries/departments/ CPSE.

The guidelines provide for advance preparatory action to be taken by administrative Ministry/ Department and CPSEs, preparation of closure proposal, settlement of statutory and other liabilities of the CPSE under closure and modalities for disposal of movable and immovable assets of such CPSEs in a time bound manner.

The DPE's guidelines give utmost priority to utilize land of CPSEs under closure for affordable housing as per the relevant guidelines of Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA). Since there are employees working in these CPSEs, Government decided that closure should not cause hardship to them and has now laid down a uniform policy to give workers VRS at 2007 notional pay scale irrespective of the pay scale in which they are working.