June 25, 2020 | A Cry For Change Amid Historical Blunders: Over the years, Indian politicians have been spinning big dreams about reshaping the country’s public sector .The congress party’s finance minister in the 1980s talked about closing down loss making PSUs but managed to close down only Banana Corporation of India which had three employees. The NDA’s finance minister Arun jaitely wanted to merge the country’s oil companies to create a giant corporation but succeeded only in imposing Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) on a reluctant ONGC which helped him bridge the fiscal deficit. Nimala Seetharaman wants to consolidate PSUs and in the process privatise some of them. Oil PSUs are definitely in her scheme of things. There are so many PSUs in the oil sector. One is already identified for privatisation which is necessary to inject competition. There is scope for strategic merger without disturbing the integrated structure of the oil sector. Click Free Access columnPetro Intelligence to read a comprehensive report on the subject.