Friday, July 15, 2005

Privatisation?

Privatisation: Good or Bad ? The generic, plain vanilla topic one inevitably comes across in atleast one GD during CAT prep. How distant and lifeless the entire thing seemed then.

But now I just had a reality check:
One has to put major fight to get a train reservation during summer along important routes like the Konkan railway, you know why ? - Because the railways runs a SINGLE train to Mumbai per day through that route. And it is proud that its the largest employer in the world and a thousand other facts.

Cannot call anyone on my cellphone after 9 pm because 'Network busy' on BSNL.

We get lousy water supply, often undrinkable in our Metro cities.

Dont feel like writing about The-Corporation-a-devil-by-Noam-Choamsky argument anymore. But I do know that privatisation of Railways in Britain and municipal water supply in Argentina have been working fine. Am plain sick of Government organisations which do not do what they set out to do: Serve the people.

Or has it ceased to be a question of governing philosophy and become a plain change in operating environment ? These organisations when envisaged after independence attracted the best talent in the industry and worked fine. And probably the debate about capitalism-vs- socialism has no relevance right now. Its just a matter of who is better equipped to serve the people?

Till privatisation occurs, all these Government organisations will be just overfed and overweight companies which wallow in public funds. Severe headache. Over and out.


Gokulakrishnan S
150705

3 comments:

Vijay Krishna Narayanan said...

Yes, Government-run firms carry too much dead-weight.

A couple of years ago, when there was discussion in college about Government and its inefficiency, I told the group, "The only way forward is to privatise the Government!" That's how bad things are.

Karthik said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Karthik said...

One effect is that the govt. runs things as if it runs a chathiram! We are not seen as their electors but as mendicants benefitting from their existence.