India's Top PSUs 2021

15 1991 de-reserving the sectors that were earlier exclusively reserved for the public sector, the number of PSUs remained more or less the same thereafter. There were merely 5 PSUs in India in 1951. This number gradually increased to 47 by 1961 and to 236 by 1991. Thereafter, the number has not changed much and as at the end of FY20, the number of operating PSUs stood at 256. The number of PSUs rose dramatically during the first four decades post-Independence 5 47 87 168 236 234 220 256 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 1951 1961 1971 1981 1991 2001 2011 2020 Number of PSUs Note: Number of operating PSUs since 1951 Source: Public Enterprises Survey, Department of Public Enterprises Consistent Share in Domestic Output since Independence The contribution of the public sector to India’s GDP increased steadily till FY90. However, the liberalisation of the economy and reforms such as the opening up of many industries to the private sector led to a marginal contraction in their contribution to GDP. After having peaked at 24% in FY93, it gradually moderated to 17% by FY20. The contraction suggests that despite policy reforms and growing competition from the private sector as well as global players, the public sector has broadly maintained its share in domestic output. Public sector largely retains its share in India’s GDP 45 54 9 24 17 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 FY61 FY65 FY70 FY75 FY80 FY85 FY90 FY95 FY00 FY05 FY10 FY15 FY20 Sha re in% GCF of public sector/India's GCF GDP of public sector/India's GDP GDP: Gross Domestic Product, GCF: Gross Capital Formation Public sector includes departmental and non-departmental PSUs as well as administrative units Source: MOSPI On the other hand, the public sector’s share in India’s total capital formation has shrunk much faster than the contribution to GDP over the same period. The share of the public sector in India’s total capital formation has significantly contracted from as high as 58% in FY87 to 18% in FY20. However, it must be noted that this contraction is not due to a shift in investment towards less capital-intensive sectors; in fact, it is actually due to increased efficiency of the public sector in the post liberalisation period, a fact which has largely gone unnoticed. Dun & Bradstreet