Author: Joel Ruet
Publisher: Academic Foundation
Year: 2005
Language: English
Pages: 340
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8171884164
Description
Beyond ideologies, beyond hiccups and cycles of reforms, privatization of State Electricity Boards of India (SEBs), just alike their public reform, are structurally stalled. The book argues, the emphasis on ownership is misleading, and needs being articulated more subtly to a look at organizational structure of SEBs.
An in-depth enquiry in SEBs shows how privatization is a one-sided game.
REVIEWS
Joel’s book is required reading for policy reform in India.
-Yoginder K Alagh
Joel Ruet is an insider. An excellent economist, as well as an engineer, his investigation inside SEBs is remarkable. Using the theories developed by James March, as well as property rights theory, he establi-shes the profound difference between an administration and an enterprise. SEBs being administrations, they cannot be privatized. An intermediary step enterprisation, is necessary. The richness and novelty of this analysis allow extending to other public organizations in service sector, as well as other countries where the reform of the productive functions of the State is the agenda of the day.
-Pierre-Noel Giraud
The question of how to reform India’s loss making State Electricity Boards has vexed economists for years. Joel Ruet provides a fresh and detailed analysis.
-Michael Pollitt
Dr Ruet is the only person I know who has established through his studies of their operations, that SEBs in India have an administrative culture. Dr Ruet has studied SEBs intensively and has ample evidence to make the comments he does. The book provides graphic descriptions of the internal decision-making processes in SEBS. It is a pity that management academics have not done this kind of study earlier because it throws up the basic reason for the decline of the SEBs. This is a book that must be read by SEBs, Regulators and government officials.
-S L Rao
Dr Ruet’s book should be essential reading for all those concerned at the apparent failure of the World Bank’s recommendations to reform the electricity supply industry in many developing countries, India providing an excellent example.
-David M Newbery
This book provides indepth enquiry and very useful insights into the problems of reforms of the State Electricity Boards in India.
-Ramprasad Sengupta