CDS (II) 2021 General Knowledge · Question 109 of 120

Correct — A, Ministry of Finance. The Department of Public Enterprises is the nodal department for central public sector enterprises, and until the middle of 2021 it sat where its name suggests, inside the Ministry of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises alongside the Department of Heavy Industry. In July 2021 it was moved to the Ministry of Finance, and the parent ministry was renamed simply the Ministry of Heavy Industries on 7 July 2021 to reflect the loss. That transfer is what made the question askable four months later. The logic behind it is not hard to see: the questions that dominate public sector policy now — disinvestment, strategic sale, asset monetisation and the return the state gets on the capital locked up in these companies — are financial questions, and the Ministry of Finance already houses the machinery for them. The Ministry of Heavy Industries kept the administration of the engineering and automobile sector and the public enterprises that belong to it.

• (b)Ministry of Heavy Industries. — The correct answer until July 2021, and the reason this is by far the strongest distractor. Anyone working from a book printed before the reshuffle would pick it. The ministry lost the words 'and Public Enterprises' from its name at the same time.
• (c)PMO. — The Prime Minister's Office coordinates and supervises; it does not hold line departments with administrative charge of a sector.
• (d)Ministry of Commerce and Industry. — That ministry houses the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade and the Department of Commerce. Industrial policy and trade sit there; the oversight of state-owned companies does not.

Central public sector enterprises are companies in which the central government holds a controlling stake. Each is administratively attached to the ministry that deals with its sector, but a single nodal department frames the common rules that apply across all of them — pay and perquisites of their executives, performance agreements, board appointments policy, and the classification of enterprises by size and performance. That nodal department is the Department of Public Enterprises.

Machinery-of-government questions look like trivia and are not, because a transfer of this kind marks a change of policy direction. Moving the nodal department into the finance ministry lines it up with disinvestment and asset monetisation, both of which were prominent in the budget of that year. The practical exam lesson is to distrust an answer that merely sounds right: 'public enterprises' sounds like heavy industry, and for decades it was, which is exactly why the setter chose this item. When a question says a department 'is a part of' something, check whether the arrangement changed recently before answering from memory.

• The Department of Public Enterprises is the nodal department for central public sector enterprises.
• It was moved to the Ministry of Finance in July 2021, having previously been part of the Ministry of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises.
• The parent ministry was renamed the Ministry of Heavy Industries on 7 July 2021.
• The Ministry of Heavy Industries retains the Department of Heavy Industry, covering machine tools, heavy electrical and industrial machinery and the automobile sector, along with the public sector enterprises attached to it.
• The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade belongs to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, not to either of these.

• Answering from the department's name rather than from the current allocation of business.
• Assuming the Prime Minister's Office holds line departments; it coordinates rather than administers a sector.
• Confusing the Department of Heavy Industry with the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade — different ministries, different work.

As a department-to-ministry item, or as a match list pairing organisations with the ministries under which they function.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Department of Public Enterprises was transferred to the Ministry of Finance in which year?

  • (a)2016
  • (b)2019
  • (c)2021
  • (d)2023

  Answer(c) 2021 — the move came in July 2021, and the parent ministry was renamed the Ministry of Heavy Industries on 7 July 2021.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade functions under which Ministry?

  • (a)Ministry of Heavy Industries
  • (b)Ministry of Commerce and Industry
  • (c)Ministry of Finance
  • (d)Ministry of Corporate Affairs

  Answer(b) Ministry of Commerce and Industry — it is often confused with the Department of Heavy Industry, which belongs to a different ministry altogether.