Nina Lath Gupta, a former IRS officer, was a government nominated director on the board of National Film Development Corporation (NFDC) Limited. The company, a central public sector enterprise (CPSE) in the business of promoting an integrated development of the Indian film industry, was incurring continuous losses which had eroded the net worth of the company by March 2005.

Gupta resigned from the services and joined this sick company as a managing director in 2006. The company was recommended to the board of reconstruction for public sector enterprises (BRPSE) and revival package of Rs 31.40 crore was approved by the government. Gupta laid down a road map of future growth of the company by taking various initiatives. And by 2013, under her leadership, NFDC turned around as a profit making CPSE; from net loss of Rs 10.29 crores in 2009-10 it turned to net profit of Rs 8.31 crores in 2012-13. On Thursday it was among the four CPSEs to be awarded the BRPSE Turnaround award, for making profit consecutively for the three financial years. In the last four years the board has awarded 19 companies so far.

The other three CPSEs were Bharat Cooking Coal Limited, a subsidiary of Coal India Limited, which was given a revival package of Rs 4382 crores; National Projects Construction Corporation Limited which was given a non-cash assistant revival package and SAIL Refractory Unit, a unit of SAIL, which was merged with Bharat Refractories Limited along with a revival package.

Nitish Sengupta, chairman of BRPSE, said that there is no single reason which results in the decline of the CPSEs. He added, “There are number of companies, which declared handsome dividend till 1991, but forgot to adjust with the changes of market situation and consumer behavior and thus declined.”

Till date, 68 cases have been referred to the board, out of which 58 have been recommended for the revival and only six recommended for the closure. Sengupta says there are many CPSEs which have not revived even after the revival package. “There are also some companies which were awarded for Turnaround but later they became loss making companies. But that’s mainly because of the market conditions in general,” he said.

He added that in the last three years number of cases referred to the board has declined, which shows that less numbers of companies are turning sick.

Atul Chaturvedi, chairman of the Public Enterprises Selection Board (PESB), said that even some blue chip companies are on the path of sickness. “With the BRPSEs intervention, we can turnaround these companies, but it would be a hurricane effort,” he added. Chaturvedi also mentioned the diagnostic study being conducted by PESB on how the CPSEs are turning sick and how it can be prevented. “We will suggest the parameters which can act as warning for other companies. We are interacting with various CPSEs, including the profit making ones, to understand it,” he said.