Karnataka’s 37 public sector undertakings (PSUs) incurred losses to the tune of ₹6,103.96 crore for the fiscal year ending March 2020, according to a Comptroller & Auditor General (CAG) report.
In all, Karnataka has 120 PSUs employing 2.04 lakh employees. A total of 107 PSUs are working and 13 are not functional.
It said 54 PSUs earned a profit of ₹2,729.91 crore as per their latest finalised accounts as of December 2020, the CAG compliance audit report tabled in the Legislative Assembly on Tuesday said.
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The major profit earning firms were KPCL (₹1,209.56 crore), and KRIDL (₹293.94 crore), while major loss making firms were RPCL (₹2,084.95 crore), and GESCOM (₹987.59 crore).
“The working PSUs registered a turnover of ₹74,922.04 crore as on December 2020. This turnover was equal to 4.60% of the GDP for 2019-20,” the report said.
However, between 2015-16 and 2019-20, the working PSUs incurred a net aggregate loss of ₹3,374.05 crore, it said.
As on March 2020, 13 PSUs having an investment of ₹670.18 crore were non-working for the last 17 years. This was a critical area as the investments in non-working PSUs do not contribute to the economic growth of the State,” the report said.
The non-working PSUs include Bangalore Suburban Rail Company Ltd, Karnataka Agro Industries Corporation Ltd, Mysore Tobacco Company Ltd, Mysore Cosmetics Ltd, Karnataka Telecom Ltd among others.
For startups
The CAG found that the release of ₹6.51 crore to 28 startups by the Karnataka Innovation Technology Society (KITS) under the Idea2PoC initiative was “irregular” as KPMG, the implementing partner, did not make available evaluation reports.
Further, under the Grand Challenge initiative, KITS incurred an expenditure of ₹4.13 crore that “did not yield the intended results”. That is because the programme was “practically abandoned” after a pilot and none of the innovative solutions were scaled up for adoption by the host department, the report said.
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