UPA to promote profit making PSUs: Rahul

Angul, May 13: All India Congress Committee general secretary Rahul Gandhi today said the UPA government will promote profit making PSUs as they played an important role in the country's development.

''Contrary to the general perception that private sector companies performed better than the public ones, a number of PSUs are making more profit than private companies,'' Mr Gandhi said.

He was addressing a public meeting here organised by the Orissa unit of the Indian National Trade Union Congress to felicitate him for helping NALCO earn the Navaratna status.

''The government will extend the profit making PSUs all sorts of help to flourish,'' he said and assured the people that PSUs like NALCO would not be privatised by the UPA government.

Mr Gandhi said somebody else and not he was behind the according of Navaratna status on NALCO. ''The employees of the PSU had also a major contribution,'' he added.

He said NALCO should have been accorded Navaratna status much earlier but it could not be done due to a faulty system.

The AICC general secretary said despite rich and natural resources, Orissa was still languishing in poverty and backwardness.

''The state's dalits and backward class people should be the main focus for development to make Orissa progressive and developed,'' he opined.

Mr Gandhi said industrialisation was the need of the hour for the development of the state but the people's voice should not be ignored.

Among others, Orissa Pradesh Congress Committee president Jaydev Jena and INTUC Orissa unit president R C Khuntia were present at the meeting.

UNI