Describe the Public, Private and Voluntary Sector PR department of India.

Kane Dane

STRUCTURING OF THE PUBLIC RELATIONS DEPARTMENTS IN THE PUBLIC, PRIVATE AND VOLUNTARY SECTORS OF INDIA.

Public Sector.

Since independence, the Public Sector has achieved tremendous growth in terms of size, depth, generation of internal resources, turnover and total investment. The country’s public sector comprises utilities such as the railways, road transport services, posts and telegraphs, power and irrigation, various defense establishments and departmental undertakings like the Integral Coach Factory. The central public sector units also include companies with 51% of the Central government share holdings.

These may be classified as:

Those producing goods such as petroleum, coal, steel, engineering, pharmaceuticals and agro-based industries, and
Those offering services like trading, technical consultancy, transportation, financial services and tourist services.

The public sector often evoke more public interest than the private sector because of its large work forces, losses and its policies and quality of products. Keeping this in view, the PR personnel should be committed to the philosophy of the public sector. The PR chief must have direct access to the primary sources of information in the organization and know the basic philosophy of the industrial policy of the government.

Private Sector

In the Private Sector, the Public Relations have to flow over all departments including personnel, sales and production. The PR activity includes maintaining relations with the employees, shareholders, distributors, dealers, suppliers, customers, government, local community and the press. The objective is to have a two-way internal communication between the management and its employees as well as the external public.

The PR department structure depends on the important function, the activities, objectives and size of the organization. As these are business organizations run on profit motives, the growth and the very existence of the organization will depend on the success of the PR activities.

Voluntary organizations

In voluntary organizations the PR persons may be voluntary workers as such organizations do not work for profit. However, voluntary organizations needs to promote themselves to obtain financial support from the government and other funds. Progressive voluntary organizations also hire the services of consultants.