State Level Public Enterprises-Issues of Autonomy and Performance

Issues of Autonomy and Performance B L Maheshwari This paper describes the evolution and nature of state level public enterprises (SLEP) in India and discusses some of the salient issues of strategy, structure arid performance of these enterprises. It seeks to show that the SLEPs are different from the Central public enterprises in terms of their environment, size, strategies, management processes and performance and, therefore, deserve special attention from students of public enterprises. It pointedly draws attention to the paucity of even factual information about the SLEPs and the many glaring contradictions even in official and semi-official accounts regarding such elementary data as the total number of such enterprises in various states.