Committee on Public Undertakings

The Committee on Public Undertakings (COPU) is one of three financial standing committees within the Parliament of India, composed of selected members of Parliament with the stated purpose of examining the reports and accounts of public sector undertakings (PSUs). The duties and responsibilities of the COPU are specified in the Fourth Schedule of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in Lok Sabha. This committee, alongside the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and the Estimates Committee (EC), are the three financial standing committees of the Parliament of India.

The COPU consists of 22 members, 15 elected by the Lok Sabha, and not more than 7 members by the upper house, the Rajya Sabha. Committee members are elected annually from among members of both houses by means of proportional representation through the single transferable vote. The chairperson of the COPU is appointed by the Lok Sabha speaker. The term of the office of the members is one year. Ministers are not eligible to become a member of the committee. If a member, after being elected to the committee, becomes a Minister, the member ceases to be a member, from the date of such appointment.

History The first proposal for a separate public sector undertakings committee was made by Lanka Sundaram in December 1953, stating the inadequacies of both the Public Accounts Committee and the Estimates Committee regarding public undertakings. In May 1956, Ashok Mehta also proposed a separate committee for public undertakings, however the then finance minister held the view that the PAC and the EC were sufficient to handle the work load. By 1957, the government had agreed to form a standing sub-committee of the EC on public undertakings. In 1958, the congress formed the V. K. Krishna Menon committee. which put forward a number of recommendations intended to reconcile the accountability of public undertakings to parliament while keeping their autonomy on one hand and also ensuring efficiency on the other.

In September 1963, Minister of Commerce and Industry Nityanand Kanungo, put forward a motion in the Lok Sabha proposing the formation of a separate Parliamentary Committee on Public Undertakings. In pursuance of this motion, the Committee on Public Undertakings was formed in effect from May 1, 1964.

Scope and Working The responsibilities of the Committee on Public Undertakings are:

To examine the reports and accounts of public undertakings specified in the fourth Schedule to the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in Lok Sabha. To examine the reports, if any, of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India on the Public Undertakings. To examine, in the context of the autonomy and efficiency of the Public Undertakings whether the affairs of the Public Undertakings are being managed in accordance with sound business principles and prudent commercial practices.

The committee from time to time takes up for examination as such any PSU or subjects related to them as they may deem fit and which are within their terms of reference. The depth or Undertaking concerned is asked to furnish necessary material relating to those subjects for information of the Members of the Committee. The Committee may from time to time appoint one or more Study Groups for carrying out detailed examination of various subjects.

Current composition

Key: = 22 members +15 Members from 18th Lok Sabha; tenureMay 2024-25Sr. No.NameConstituency, stateParty1Baijayant PandaKendrapara, OdishaBJP2Shankar LalwaniIndore, Madhya Pradesh3Poonamben MaadamJamnagar, Gujarat4B. Y. RaghavendraShimoga, Karnataka5Mukesh RajputFarrukhabad, Uttar Pradesh6Pratap Chandra SarangiBalasore, Odisha7Chandra Prakash JoshiChittorgarh, Rajasthan8Tariq AnwarKatihar, BiharINC9Sukhjinder Singh RandhawaGurdaspur, Punjab10Kodikunnil SureshMavelikara, Kerala11R. K. ChaudharyMohanlalganj, Uttar PradeshSP12Sudip BandyopadhyayKolkata Uttar, West BengalAITC13KanimozhiThoothukudi, Tamil NaduDMK14Vemireddy Prabhakar ReddyNellore, Andhra PradeshTDP15Kaushalendra KumarNalanda, BiharJDU +7 Members from the Rajya SabhaSr. No.NameState LegislatureParty1Bhagwat KaradMaharashtra BJP2Surendra Singh NagarUttar Pradesh 3Arun SinghUttar Pradesh 4Neeraj DangiRajasthan INC5Milind DeoraMaharashtra SS6N. D. GuptaDelhiAAP7Debashish SamantarayOdishaBJD

List of Public Undertakings The scope of COPU is limited to the undertakings specified in the fourth Schedule to the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in Lok Sabha. They are as follows: +List of Public Undertakings specified in 2019 editionPart IPart IIPart IIIPublic Undertakings established by Central Acts Damodar Valley Corporation Life Insurance Corporation of India Central Warehousing Corporation Food Corporation of India Airports Authority of India National Highways Authority of IndiaEvery Government Company whose annual report is placed before the Houses of Parliament under sub-section (1) of Section 619A of the Companies Act, 1956Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd Bharat Electronics Ltd Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Ltd Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers Ltd

Notable probes (2014-present)

BSNL Salary ratio (2014) The Committee on Public Undertakings noted in its report: "The staff cost was about ₹ 13,406 crore in 2011-12, that is almost 50 per cent of its revenue, which is abnormally on the higher side as compared to private companies whose expenditure is stated to be in the range of 5-10 per cent."

ONGC Videsh Ltd (2014) Based on the performance audit done by C&AG presented in report no. 28 for the year 2010-11, the COPU had the following findings: "Due to unrealistic estimation of reserves/production, OVL has suffered a huge loss of Rs.1182.14 crore during the period 2008-09 and 2009-10. Since OVL did not chose to farm-out part of its stake to a local partner, the entire loss has been borne out by it," Following up in August 2015, COPU stated; "Except reiterating its earlier reply OVL has not offered any justification for its ill-conceived decision not to farm-out part of its stake in IEC to local Russian firms/ entities and its unrealistic estimation of oil reserves and production targets."

Chairpersons

Chairpersons of the committee till date Sr. No.NameTerm of officeTermsPolitical party (Alliance)1P. Govinda Menon1964-662INC2Dwarka N. Tiwary1966-671JNP3Surindra Nath Dwivedy1967-681PSP4G. S. Dhillon1968-691INC5Mansinhji Rana1969-7236Subhadra Joshi1972-7317Amrit Nahata1973<18Nawal Kishore Sharma1973-7639Darbara Singh1976-77110Jyotirmoy Basu1977-792CPI(M)11Bapu Kaldate1979-801JD12Bansi Lal1980-822INC13Madhusudan Vairale1982-85314Vazhappady K. Ramamurthy1985-87215Vakkom Purushothaman1987-90316Basudeb Acharia1990-911CPI(M)17A. R. Antulay1991-932INC18Vilas Muttemwar1993-95219Kamal Chaudhary1995-96120G. Venkatswamy1996-98221Manbendra Shah1998-991BJP22Vijay Kumar Malhotra1999-2004523Rupchand Pal2004-095CPI(M)24V. Kishore Chandra Deo2009-112INC25Jagdambika Pal2011-14326Shanta Kumar2014-195BJP27Meenakshi Lekhi2019-21228Santosh Gangwar2021-24329Baijayant Panda2024-incumbent1

Longest serving chairpersons of COPU Sr. No.NameTermsYearsParty1Vijay Kumar Malhotra51999-2004BJP2Rupchand Pal52004-09CPI(M)3Shanta Kumar52014-19BJP

Reports Since the inception of the COPU, it has presented 604 reports till date. Of these, 301 are original reports, and 303 are reports on actions taken by the Government in response the original reports made by the COPU. Out of those 301 original reports, 37 are horizontal studies on various aspects of working of the public undertakings.

Committee on Public Undertakings

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