Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday slammed policies shielding public sector firms from competition and called for greater functional autonomy and freedom from ''bureaucratic control'' to remove the possible distortions arising due to government control. ''By virtue of their (state-owned firms) ownership,they have been shielded from competition and have long enjoyed captive markets. Unfortunately,government ownership inevitably brings with it a bureaucratic style of decision-making and the end result is that the enterprise cannot compete in a market populated by equals,'' Singh said while addressing the BRICS international competition conference here. He also called for fostering competition in public procurement by removing unnecessary restrictions and designing tenders in a better way. Warning the BRICS nations against speculative capital flows,the Prime Minister said monitoring and managing such flows is a major challenge in times of global uncertainties. The statement comes amid huge volatility across global markets mainly on account of talks of tapering of quantitative easing by Federal Reserve. Fed had announced tapering $85 billion bond buying early during the year,sending the world markets into a tizzy.
