Which of the following is a public sector industry?

Correct — B. A public sector enterprise is one the government owns and controls, normally by holding a majority of its paid-up capital.

BHEL — Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited — is a central public sector enterprise under the Ministry of Heavy Industries, building equipment for power generation and transmission.

Adani, Reliance and Tata are private business houses. Option (b) is the only government-owned name in the list.

Why the others are wrong

• (a)
  Adani — Adani is a privately promoted conglomerate in ports, power and logistics. Its scale is irrelevant here, because ownership rather than size decides the sector.
• (c)
  Reliance — Reliance Industries is a listed private company with no majority government shareholding, so it sits in the private sector.
• (d)
  Tata — Tata is a private group. It even bought Air India from the government in 2022, moving a former public sector airline into private hands.

Indian industry is classified by ownership into the public sector, the private sector, the joint sector and the cooperative sector.

Public sector units are owned and run by the state — central undertakings such as BHEL, SAIL, ONGC and GAIL, plus state-level enterprises. Private sector units are owned by individuals or private companies.

The point the classification protects is simple. A firm does not become public by being large, listed or nationally important. It is public only if the government holds control.

Key facts

• BHEL is a central public sector enterprise under the Ministry of Heavy Industries.
• A public sector undertaking is one in which the government holds majority ownership and control.
• Tata, Reliance and Adani are private sector groups.

Common traps

• Treating a large and famous company as public sector because it is nationally important.
• Forgetting that a public sector unit can be sold and stop being one.

No directly related past PYQ was found.