More Nonsense From Our The Chacha State

The top headline in ET today is this:

New Divestment Policy: Centre to lease 6 PSUs to private Cos for 99 years

These 6 PSUs include – you guessed it – Scooters India. Yes, there was a time when they made cars, scooters and bicycles – and there were no roads. Now, we have enough cars and scooters from MNCs, but as yet have no roads worth the name. And they want to continue on the path of gross error.

Personally, I see no reason why disinvestment in PSUs should be carried out in this back-door fashion. I would much prefer a “freehold” privatization to this “leasehold” method. Let the State get out of ownership of factories, and let new private owners emerge. And let us carry on from there, jettisoning all the intellectual errors of the past – especially, Nehruvianism, the idea of a State that also makes steel. Nonsense! I would much prefer a State that also makes roads – and not much else.

At the core of the issue lies the question of Collective Property. To socialists like Nehru, these factories were “collective property.” Yet, in practice, as we have been observing for some 60 years, all these factories, hotels, banks, mines etc. have been run as if they were the “personal fiefdom” of the minister-in-charge. The minister enjoyed full “ownership” of the PSU – the “collective property” – in exactly the same manner as he enjoyed full ownership of his official bungalow in Lutyens’ Delhi, which is also “collective property.” In both cases, the collective property became the private property of a person who “claims to represent the public.”

Now, as is common knowledge, ministers charge for making appointments to PSU management. Thus, candidates have to literally “purchase” managerial positions in PSUs. In effect, then, these managers obtained an indefinite lease to exploit the PSU as if it were their own property. What will change now? – except that a 99-year lease will protect the new management better from arbitrariness on the part of the minister. Yet, despite all this, the PSU will remain the minister’s personal fief. Nothing much will change.

Chacha Manmohan S Gandhi is hoodwinking us again, while also keeping the evil legacy of Nehru alive. He seems to be a consummate liar – for he has also just stated, on the eve of his departure for the USSA, that there is “no substitute for the US dollar.” Then why did your RBI buy 200 tonnes of gold, Chacha?

What would I do? Why, I would sell every PSU and invest ALL the proceeds in roads. Roads are real "collective property" that all the people, including visiting foreigners, can use freely. I just drove 40 kms out of Delhi towards Gurgaon and Manesar on the so-called "expressway." I had to pay tolls 4 times! Quadruple taxation.

Chacha is hood-winking the nation. But then, what's new? This is the only legacy of the Congress: Lies, more lies, damned lies - and, of course, STATISTICS!