64 SOCIAL SCIENTIST mentary debates are not likely to be research based due to lack of independent information and/or expertise, resulting in their being defused and non specific. In a judgement relating to the Sindri Fertiliser the Supreme Court had observed, "The accountability of the public sector and parliamentary control is ineffective because parliamentary control of the public sector is diffuse and haphazard." In spite of this there is every attempt to curtail even this limited and innocuous parliamentary control as is reflected in the report of the Arjun Sen Gupta Committee. The relation between the ministry and the undertaking is one of Tweedledum and Tweedledee ; there is little to distingush the two. They mutually coexist on the basis of 'lunch table directives'. Prof. M.J.K. Thavaraj in his study on performance budgeting for public enterprises observed, "There is no proper synchronization between the programme and organizational structure or an adequate matching of responsibilities. The executive accountability is more formal than real. Though the financial system and procedures evolved before independence might have served the limited purpose of law and order and revenue administration of alien rulers in India, they are found to be incompatible with the needs of development administration since independence." There is little more than this that can be expected even with the instrumentality of the recent innovation of Memorandum of Understanding. What is required is that the entire structure of the public sector be reorganized in such a way that it falls into economic categories that can be based on scientific logic and which will minimize duplication of effort as well as consolidation of skills. There may be a case for several Bureaus of Public Undertakings which can study in depth technologically similar industrial units and evaluate them effectively, like a BPE electronics unit, one for mining, etc. Parliamentary control must be given teeth by providing the services of experts and independent sources of information. Committee of Public Undertakings in the Parliament should seek evidence from the Officers' Associations in the concerned units. In the absence of any of this, providing autonomy that ends with the Chief Executive and does not percolate below, is bound to create a system where temporal gods would preside over their charges with a great degree of arbitrariness. Add to this the following realization of the Third Plan document on which barely nothing has been done in the last twenty six years : "Even as the General Manager does not enjoy sufficient authority to manage efficiently, there is often a failure by him and other management staff in the hierarchy to delegate authority to others down the line, who cannot do their job properly without the necessary authority. The lack of delegation of authority is usually accompanied by a failure to define responsibility and duties. Nobody can operate confidently or efficiently or be held responsible for results unless he knows what he is supposed to do and has the authority to do it," This more than anything else is the basic problem of the