Bakht said on the sidelines of a Ficci seminar on "Restructuring PSUs" that the government will extend the term of Disinvesment Commission after reviewing the original functions of the panel and the extent to which it has accomplished them.

When asked whether the Commission will be assigned the job of regulating the disinvestment process, the industry minister didn't deny such a possibility. He said that a decision will be taken in this regard at the appropriate moment. Bakht's statement is significant in the light of completion of the present term of the Commission on August 22.

Earlier, addressing the seminar, Bakht said restructuring of PSUs had become the need of the hour to operate in the competitive environment particularly in the post liberalisation phase.

Restructuring does not necessarily mean infusion of capital alone. Itmay be improvement in technology and skills, product diversification and expansion into new markets, he said. "If we are not getting the returns from the infused capital, from where we will get the money to spend further," the Industry Minister said.

Bakht said the government wanted returns from the whopping Rs 2,50,000 crore investment that have been made on PSUs. "The base of restructuring should be, if money is invested in PSUs then return should come. We leave aside the basic point of getting return from the invested money," he said.

The experts should come out clearly with their views on how the return on the money spent in PSUs can be recovered, said Bakht. The future viability of PSUs would depend on their becoming cost-effective, efficient, productive and market oriented, Bakht said.

"Enterprise specific solutions are necessary which take into account the operative environment of the enterprise. In a competitive environment, one has to choose appropriate strategies of business for variousproducts and services," he said.

The government was aware of the problems faced by PSUs particularly in management areas and was taking appropriate measures for restructuring the PSUs on a case to case basis.

Nearly 50 proposals of restructuring had been initiated in the last one year and many of them had been approved, he said, adding many more were at different stages of consideration.

"It is noteworthy that many of the enterprises have already initiated restructuring measures at their own instance," Bakht said. There has to be judicious and cautious approach in exercising menu of options available for restructuring so that the efforts are not in vain and our limited resources are not strained without getting desired results, he added.