Most of them would have done so, without a murmur, and no one would have come to know, had things not got out of hand, with stray leaks here and there.

Nor is this a stray incident -- reports periodically surface on how various politicians, without so much as a blink of their eyelid, get PSUs to fund their constituency and, worse, to try to influence various contracts signed by these PSUs.

It is this distinct possibility, of politicians and bureaucrats being allowed to run amok in the PSUs under their charge, that has beenthe basis of Ramakrishna's criticism of Kelkar's proposal. According to Ramakrishna, Kelkar's proposal essentially looks at only one side of the picture, that of freeing PSUs from the onerous controls of Parliament and bodies like the CAG. What it also does, and this is its fatal flaw, is to make it far easier for politicians to exercise a vice-like control over their PSUs.

Briefly, Kelkar's proposal was that the government divest its equity in various PSUs to 49 percent, and transfer the rest to a specially created company, called a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV). Since this company wouldn't have much money of its own, both the government and the PSUs were to lend money to it.

The SPV would then `give' this money to the government for the PSU shares it had `bought'. When the stock markets improved, in a year or two, it would sell the PSU shares with it, and share the profits (if there are no profits, the Kelkar model virtually falls apart) with the government as well as the PSUs.

With the governmentstake at 49 percent in these PSUs, the model postulates, they will be free of Parliament and the CAG, and will run as professional companies. And since the government will be divesting its shareholding to a company which is, in turn, partly owned by it, the government will also find it politically easier to do this. Brilliant! The problem, however, is that Kelkar being the trusting sort, didn't see how politicians like Vazhapadi would seize this god-sent opportunity.

Understandably, while lobbying for his idea with the group of secretaries last week, and several heads of PSUs just a couple of days earlier, Kelkar didn't bring up this possibility. The PSU heads, judging by the press statement issued by them following this meeting, it would appear, were quite concerned about this possibility. Which is why, while they welcomed the `autonomy under (the) SPV proposal', they did so with reservations. They said that important issues such as ministerial control and functional freedom would have to beaddressed.

But, several proponents of the Kelkar model have argued, all this is quibbling. How can one automatically assume that PSU boards will not be allowed to function autonomously. After all, an editorial in one of the country's pink papers argued recently, the entire private sector works in this fashion, without organisations like CAG to check them. For these private companies, mechanisms such as annual reports, annual general meetings, and disclosure norms are considered a good enough check.

Once again, the answer to this lies in the ingenuity of politicians and bureaucrats to distort things in their favour. Take the case of Maruti, a company in which the government holding was reduced to below 51 percent to free it from Parliament and the bureuacracy. Yet, as the public fight between the government and Suzuki showed, the government kept interfering.

But, it is argued, Ramakrishna himself has been advocating that the government should divest its shareholding to 49 percent in several PSUs --likeKelkar, his argument has also been that this would free the PSUs of choking controls. The fact, however, is that these so-called experts forgot that Ramakrishna never really made these recommendations at all. The broad philosophy behind all Ramakrishna's recommendations is that there should be `strategic' sales, with the composition of the present board changing in favour of genuine professionals.

This strategic sale would result in either a complete change in management to the private sector, or a substantial share in management as in the case of Maruti Udyog -- in this case, as in Maruti, the strategic management partner would be big enough, like Suzuki, to ensure that the company was run professionally.

Ramakrishna, who, like Kelkar, is not someone who lets any idea of his be dismissed lightly, of course, ensured that when the core group of secretaries met to discuss Kelkar's proposal, they couldn't just bypass him.

He wrote to the Cabinet Secretary saying that, as Disinvestment Commission chief, hisviews on the matter had to be solicited. Which is why, contrary to what the government's principal information officer put out that evening, the core group never discussed, much less endorsed, Kelkar's proposal. They left it, instead, for the group of ministers to debate its pros and cons.

The ministers, of course, will love it, and are almost certain to recommend it to the Cabinet. It will, needless to say, be a travesty of justice, if the Cabinet passes it.