Nanjundappa, an eminent economist and chairman of the Indian Council for Social Sciences Research, said that The Economist had carried advertisements of the government of India seeking professional consultancy from firms on matters the commission had already dealt with. This, he said, was an assault on the powers and dignity of the commission.

He, however, said the government was the ultimate authority to accept, reject or modify the recommendations of the commission.

The commission had given three to four options on companies that were to be disinvested. The mere fact of these being open for examination for an external agency was hurting and could not be accepted as it would erode the powers of the commission. "I am probably lingering inthe minds of other members too, but they had chosen to wait up to August 31."

He said he would not attend the commission's meetings any more and that his decision was final.

Nanjundappa said that he and other members of the commission had actually put in their resignation papers together, but there was some rethinking on their decision following reported inquires by prime minister Vajpayee expressing his concern over the moves of the members. But he went ahead with his resignation because it was a decision arrived after "a deep thought".

In his letter, Nanjundappa, who also heads the Karnataka Planning Board, said that he was resigning in protest against curtailment of terms or reference of the commission and the manner in which it was treated, particularly on consideration of a package of measures and recommendations made by the commission.

"I am offering my resignation to the office of part-time member of the public sector disinvestment commission with effect from July 25, 1998," he said.

He saidthere was no response from the government after the chairman and members of the commission apprised the finance and industry minister about the measures suggested by the commission on 41 of the 43 public sector units referred to the commission. However, recommendations regarding only two or three of the state units had been implemented, he lamented.

Disinvestment comes under the purview of the Department of Public Enterprises under the ministry of industry. The setting up of the commission was announced by former finance minister P Chidambaram in his maiden budget to advise the government on the disinvestment pattern and the price to be fixed, whether to be disinvested within the country or in the global depository receipts market.

The commission is headed by chairman GV Ramakrishna, who is a full-time member and four part-time members, including Nanjundappa. The other three are National Thermal Power Corporation chairman Rajinder Singh, Delhi School of Economics professor Suresh Tendulkar and DeepankarBasu.

"There has been an exchange between the chairman and the prime minister. In view of this, the other members have decided not to precipitate the issue. They also tried to dissuade me from resigning. I could not back out because I had already made up my mind," he said. The government had done very little on the recommendations of the commission, including the one which had suggested setting up of a monitoring agency to implement the recommendations, Nanjundappa said.

Nanjundappa said the consensus was to have slimmer public-sector units, which went against the interests of labour. Retiring the employees giving them some attractive sum of money under voluntary retirement schemes was certainly not a solution to the problem, he said. Retiring workers should be given rigorous retraining, he observed.