8216;Divestment cannot improve PSUs8217; efficiency8217;

Stating that the government has no role in running airlines or hotels and scores of other industries now,he said it is time that the government stopped pumping in pubic money into these ventures.

8220;What we need is a government superstructure than can improve overall governance and efficiencies and not a government that is into running every other company,8221; he said.

Pointing out that there are many jewels in our PSU basket that can really shine and compete with anyone in the world provided they are allowed to function freely,he said the way to achieve that is to make the PSUs fully owned by the public through IPOs and not through partial divestment.

Citing the example of a Brazilian government-owned company Baley,which after a public full listing has gone on to become one of the top 30 largest companies in the world,he said,8221;Our PSUs can also become so if the government liberated them from its clutches and allowed them to grow freely.8221;

To a question on can RBI regulation help resolve the crisis in the MFI sector,Rajan said,while regulation such as capping interest rates,is needed,8221;what the regulator should ensure is that the cure is not worse than the disease.8221;

From today onwards,some of the activities of MFIs will be under RBI lens,following the Malegam report which called for capping lending rates,among other things.