New Delhi: Five sick PSUs will be shut down and the government will pay good VRS package to their employees, according to Heavy Industries Minister Anant Geete.
The government decided to close the five Central Public Service Enterprises "which are sick" and "which we are not being able to run and cannot run even in future", he said Thursday.
"We are going to give them (employees) good package through VRS," he added.
The five PSUs include three units of HMT, he said.
There are altogether 65 sick PSUs which include Air India, MTNL and Hindustan Shipyard, according to official figures.
Commenting on media reports, Geete denied that he had talked about shutting down Air India and MTNL, which anyway do not come under his ministry's ambit.
The reasons for their sickness vary from enterprise to enterprise and included obsolete plants and machinery, heavy interest burden, resource crunch, surplus manpower and shortage of working capital, he said.
