ISSUES REGARDING THE PUBLIC SECTOR THAT NEED PUBLIC DEBATE 65 public sector and none other than the top management of the public sector is responsible for this state of affairs. The talk of autonomy to the public sector or productivity linked wages not only does not make sense but would prove to be positively counterproductive if the question raised by the Thild Plan document remains unresolved. The Management of the Public Sector The management of the public sector is vested with Directors appointed by the Government both full time and part time. The tenures are so short that any decision taken cannot be realized since the gestation period involved in the implementation is longer than the tenure of the Directors. Notwithstanding the rhetoric on participative management since the Second Five Year Plan period, wherein in 1957, a Committee set up to examine the workers' participation in management had recorded, "If the employeer has the final power, then the worker cannot be said to be participating in management, however strong the consultative machinery may be and however attentive the employer may be to the workers' views." On the other hand, it can be argued that a sharp line cannot be drawn between the rights of consultation and those of participation except as a matter of dialectics. Decision making cannot be absolute. "The workers' partic-pation is limited to the Joint Management Councils as provided in the Industrial Disputes Act. However, the plurality of trade unions and the various repressive laws (like MISA, ESMA, NSA, etc.) that are enforced from time to time essentially reduce the JMCs to a ritual even as bodies for collective targaining. The officers do not even have this ritual. As already stated the officers are reduced to a situation where they seek the path of least resistance. Under these circumstances one finds a total lack of institutionalization in the management of the public sector. The public sector is owned by the people and the employees besides being employees are also the most concerned and informed section of the people. There can be no case for treating them as wayfarers or officious busy bodies. In the absence of any public control effectively excercised either by the Parliament or a mechanism of the effective participation of the employees and Directors who come in at the fag end of their careers for short durations how is the public sector expected to produce wonders is a question that begs an answer. Propositions like handing over the management to individuals in the private sector on a part time basis or to provide equity shares in lieu of participative management are worse than the problems they seek to resolve. There is only one way to ensure a healthy public sector and that is to make it the core sector, provide mechanisms for effective participation of all sections of the employees in the management and have effective parliamentary controls. Conclusion The history of science and industrialization have established that no