In 1996, in order to improve efficiency, infuse professionalism and enable them to compete more effectively in the liberalized global environment, the government chose nine PSUs and declared them as nava-ratnas.
They were given greater managerial and operational autonomy, in taking various decisions to run the company efficiently and thus increase their profits. Greater operational, financial and managerial autonomy had also been granted to 97 other profit-making enterprises referred to as mini-ratnas.
