Fortune 500: India's representation on the list woefully small

Small may be beautiful, but it can be a chastening experience to realise just how small one is in the big league tables. Fortune magazine's annual register of the world's largest companies is a carefully watched stock-taking of corporate growth around the world.

Last month, the Los Angeles-based fortnightly issued its 1980 list of the largest 500 companies outside the United States (which has, traditionally, hogged the lion's share of the global 500), and though India can raise a cheer or two, the list shows that even in the developing world India's performance in the corporate sweepstakes is far from sparkling.

India's two evergreens in the list have actually managed to better their position. Indian Oil, with sales listed at $ 4.6 billion (Rs 3,680 crore) in 1980 moved up to 94th position from 104th to be sandwiched between West Germany's 20th largest and Japan's 16th largest companies. And the country's vast yet unprofitable Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) moved up to 204th place in 1980 from 228th in 1979 with sales listed at S2.3 billion (Rs 1,940 crore).

Strangely enough, Fortune's figures don't match those issued by the enterprises themselves. Fortune's sales figure for Indian Oil is substantially less than the Rs 4,485 crore indicated for 1979-80 in last year's annual report of the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE). The same is true of SAIL, which is shown in BPE figures to have grossed Rs 1,995 crore in 1979-80 compared with the Rs 1,840 crore worked out from Fortune's 1980 figure.