Committee on Public Undertakings

The Committee on Public Undertakings (COPU) is a committee of selected members of parliament, constituted by the Parliament of India, for the purpose of examining the reports and accounts of the public sector undertakings (PSUs) as specified in the fourth schedule of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in Lok Sabha. This committee along with the Public Accounts committee (PAC) and the Estimates committee (EC) are the three financial standing committees of the Parliament of India.

Committee on Public Undertakings
Financial Standing Committee
16th Lok Sabha
Founded1 May 1964 (1964-05-01)
Country India
Leadership
ChaipersonMeenakshi Lekhi
Chairperson partyBharatiya Janata Party
AppointerLok sabha Speaker
Structure
Seats22
Lok Sabha : 15
Rajya Sabha : 7
Political Parties  BJP (11)

  INC (2)
  AIADMK (2)
  TDP (2)
  BJD (2)
  SAD (1)
  TRS (1)

  AITC (1)
Election criteriaThe members are elected every year from amongst its members of respective houses according to the principle of proportional representation.
Tenure1 Year
Jurisdiction
PurposeExamining the reports and accounts of the Public sector undertakings(PSUs)
Rules & Procedure
Applicable rulesRule 312A & 312B (page 115 - 116)
Fourth Schedule (page 156)

The committee consists of twenty-two members, fifteen elected by Lok Sabha, the lower house of the Parliament, and not more than seven members of Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Parliament. The members are elected every year from amongst its members of respective houses according to the principle of proportional representation by means of single transferable vote. The chairperson is appointed by the Lok Sabha speaker. The term of office of the members is one year. A minister is not eligible to become a member of the committee. If a member after his election to the committee becomes a Minister, he ceases to be a member from the date of such appointment.[1]

History

The first proposal for a separate committee had been raised by Lanka Sundaram in 1953, stating the inadequacies Public Accounts committee (PAC) and the Estimates committee (EC) with respect to public undertakings, but the then finance minister did not relent to that idea. In May 1956. Ashok Mehta also proposed that there should be a separate committee for public undertakings, however the then finance minister held the view that the PAC and the EC were sufficient to handle the work load. By 1957, the government had agreed to form a standing sub-committee of the EC on public undertakings. In 1958, the congress formed the V. K. Krishna Menon committee. which put forward a number of recommendations intended to reconcile the accountability of public undertakings to parliament while keeping their autonomy on one hand and also ensuring efficiency on the other.[2]

In the September of 1963, the then Minister of Commerce and Industry Nityanand Kanungo, put forward a motion in the Lok Sabha proposing the formation of a separate Parliamentary Committee on Public Undertakings. In pursuance of this motion the Committee on Public Undertakings was formed with effect from May 1, 1964.

Scope and Working

The functions of the Committee on Public Undertakings are

  • To examine the reports and accounts of public undertakings specified in the fourth Schedule to the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in Lok Sabha.
  • To examine the reports, if any, of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India on the Public Undertakings.
  • To examine, in the context of the autonomy and efficiency of the Public Undertakings whether the affairs of the Public Undertakings are being managed in accordance with sound business principles and prudent commercial practices.

The committee from time to time takes up for examination as such any PSU or subjects related to them as they may deem fit and which are within their terms of reference. The dep or Undertaking concerned is asked to furnish necessary material relating to those subjects for information of the Members of the Committee. The Committee may from time to time appoint one or more Study Groups for carrying out detailed examination of various subjects.

Current composition

Keys:   BJP (11)   INC (2)   AIADMK (2)   TDP (2)   BJD (2)   SAD (1)   TRS (1)   AITC (1) = 22 members

Party-wise membership of Committee on Public Undertakings

  BJD (9.09%)
  AIDMK (9.09%)
  AITC (4.55%)
  TDP (9.09%)
  TRS (4.55%)
  INC (9.09%)
  SAD (4.55%)
  BJP (50%)
15 Members from 16th Lok Sabha; tenure – May 2018-19
Sr. No. Portrait Name Constituency, state Party
1 Shanta Kumar[lower-alpha 1] Kangra, Himachal Pradesh BJP
2 Lal Krishna Advani Gandhinagar, Gujarat
3 Ramesh Bais Raipur, Madhya Pradesh
4 Haribabu Kambhampati Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh
5 Ajay Nishad Muzaffarpur, Bihar
6 Prahlad Singh Patel Damoh, Madhya Pradesh
7 Narendra Keshav Sawaikar South Goa, Goa
8 Sushil Kumar Singh Aurangabad, Bihar
9 Rameshwar Teli Dibrugarh, Assam
10 Konakalla Narayana Rao Machilipatnam, Andhra Pradesh TDP
11 Saugata Roy Dum Dum, West Bengal AITC
12 G Hari Arakkonam, Tamil Nadu AIDMK
13 Ravneet Singh Ludhiana, Punjab INC
14 Vinod Kumar Boianapalli Karimnagar, Telangana TRS
15 Nagendra Pradhan Sambalpur, Odisha BJD
Notes
  1. Chairperson of the committee for the current year.
7 Members from the Rajya Sabha
Sr. No. Name State Legislature Party
1 Samsheer Singh Manhas Jammu & Kashmir BJP
2 Ramvichar Netam Chattishgarh
3 Mohd. Ali Khan Andhra Pradesh INC
4 Pratap Keshari Deb Odisha BJD
5 Naresh Gujral Punjab SAD
6 C. M. Ramesh Andhra Pradesh TDP
7 AK Selvaraj Tamil Nadu AIDMK

List of Public Undertakings

The scope of COPU is limited to the undertakings specified in the fourth Schedule to the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in Lok Sabha. They are as follows :

List of Public Undertakings as specified in 2014 edition[3]
Part I Part II Part III
The Public Undertakings established by Central Acts Every Government Company whose annual report

is placed before the Houses of Parliament

under sub-section (1) of Section 619A

of the Companies Act, 1956

Probes in recent years

BSNL Salary ratio (2014)

The Committee on Public Undertakings noted in its report: "The staff cost was about Rs.13,406 crore in 2011-12, that is almost 50 per cent of its revenue, which is abnormally on the higher side as compared to private companies whose expenditure is stated to be in the range of 5-10 per cent."[4]

ONGC Videsh Ltd (2014)

Based on the performance audit done by C&AG presented in report no. 28 for the year 2010-11, the COPU had the following findings -"Due to unrealistic estimation of reserves/production, OVL has suffered a huge loss of Rs.1182.14 crore during the period 2008-09 and 2009-10. Since OVL did not chose to farm-out part of its stake to a local partner, the entire loss has been borne out by it"[5] Following up in August 2015, COPU stated - "Except reiterating its earlier reply OVL has not offered any justification for its ill-conceived decision not to farm-out part of its stake in IEC to local Russian firms/ entities and its unrealistic estimation of oil reserves and production targets"[6]

Chairpersons

Chairpersons of the committee till date
Sr. No. Name Term of office Terms Political party

(Alliance)

1 P. Govinda Menon 1964-66 2 INC
2 Dwarka N. Tiwary 1966-67 1 JNP
3 Surindra Nath Dwivedy 1967-68 1 PSP
4 G. S. Dhillon 1968-69 1 INC
5 Mansinhji Rana 1969-72 3
6 Subhadra Joshi 1972-73 1
7 Amrit Nahata 1973 partial
8 Nawal Kishore Sharma 1973-76 3
9 Darbara Singh 1976-77 1
10 Jyotirmoy Basu 1977-79 2 CPI(M)
11 Bapu Kaldate 1979-80 1 JD
12 Bansi Lal 1980-82 2 INC
13 Madhusudan Vairale 1982-85 3
14 Vazhappady K. Ramamurthy 1985-87 2
15 Vakkom Purushothaman 1987-90 3
16 Basudeb Acharia 1990-91 1 CPI(M)
17 A. R. Antulay 1991-93 2 INC
18 Vilas Muttemwar 1993-95 2
19 Kamal Chaudhary 1995-96 1
20 G. Venkatswamy 1996-98 2
21 Manbendra Shah 1998-99 1 BJP
22 Vijay Kumar Malhotra 1999-2004 5
23 Rupchand Pal 2004-09 5 CPI(M)
24 V. Kishore Chandra Deo 2009-11 2 INC
25 Jagdambika Pal 2011-14 3 BJP
26 Shanta Kumar 2014-19 5
27 Meenakshi Lekhi 2019-incumbent 1

Longest serving chairpersons of COPU
Sr. No. Name Terms Years Party
1 Vijay Kumar Malhotra 5 1999-2004 BJP
2 Rupchand Pal 5 2004-09 CPI(M)
3 Shanta Kumar 5 2014-19 BJP

Reports Published

The committee since inception has presented 604 reports till date. Of these, 301 are original Reports, and 303 are reports on action taken by the Government on the original reports of the committee. Out of 301 original reports, 37 are in the nature of horizontal studies on various aspects of working of the public undertakings.

See also

References
  1. "Rules of Procedure and Conduct Loksabha - Page 115 (148)" (PDF).
  2. "A Committee is Born" (PDF).
  3. "Rules of Procedure and conduct Page 156 (189)" (PDF).
  4. "BSNL's salary outgo rises to Rs 13,406 crore". NDTV.com. Retrieved 2018-10-07.
  5. "Parliamentary panel seeks review of ONGC Videsh's Imperial Energy acquisition". NDTV.com. Retrieved 2018-10-07.
  6. "Parliament Panel Raps OVL for Imperial Energy acquisition". NDTV.com. Retrieved 2018-10-07.
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