Before bundling all oil PSEs together remember disastrous merger of Air India and Indian Airlines

NEW DELHI .Finance minister Arun Jaitley indicated, in his budget speech, that the government is considering bundling of all oil public sector enterprises (PSEs) into one giant unit: “We propose to create an integrated public sector ‘oil major’ which will be able to match the performance of international and domestic private sector oil and gas companies.” This is a terrible idea. 
 
Jaitley has not clarified as to whether the intention is to bundle all PSEs into one company or into a number of companies. When such a proposal was mooted in 2005, the then minister of petroleum and natural gas, Mani Shankar Aiyar, wanted one giant corporation under his chairmanship like Aramco of Saudi Arabia or Russia’s Gazprom.

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