Wisdom Of A National Carrier:
"In the ranking of 12 countries, India has been named as having the most inefficient bureaucracy followed by Indonesia and the Philippines, according to the survey of expatriate business executives conducted by the Hong Kong-based Political and Economic Risk Consultancy (PERC)"
The important point to remember here is that albeit our rotten bureaucracy, we do have brilliant bureaucrats. Some of them are conscientious & austere despite the unthinkable odds. As we have experienced, having great people is not enough if the system is not good enough. Therefore, we need to reflect on our system and its changes rather than find scape goats when things go wrong big time. Sarad Pawar's family owning the IPL's dirty interests or Mahagenco taking 350 crores bribes as today's headlines are mere symptoms of a huge systemic failure.
Air India's plane crashed in Mangalore with many lost lives. Soon after that we have had a handful of near-misses. We witnessed a flash strike by Air India's employees with no justification. We all know the service standards in the national carrier and also know who flies business class in Air India. If that was not worse, the tax payer would be doling out 5500 Crores to cover her losses in 2010. To sum it up, every Indian has to pay to keep our national carrier flying to periodically kill and maim passengers, blacken India's emerging image in the world, to gobble down more tax payers' money in the future, and above all give a third rated service to the passengers who pay and a royal one to those who don't. That being the case with the national carrier, our private airlines have certainly done us proud both internationally and at home, despite the odds. Now let us explore the answer to the question : "Do we need a national carrier ?" Even though the answer is staring us on our wallets, we still chug along the good old corridor of a widening fiscal deficit.
Then comes the next question. Do we need a national sea carrier? It's true that our national sea carrier does not kill or maim passengers. However, it does things far more comically wasteful and adds it fair share to the fiscal deficit. A half measure is no measure in a situation like today. Partially selling some shares in SCI is as good as a bout of confused cries from the stark & hard reality. The flight of fantasy needs a stop & majority stake needs to be sold to Indian players. Ten years back, the BJP government dared. Today the current government has proved its spinelessness on an issue, that has far reaching ramifications in the future of our nation. Governments can do business - look at Singapore or Dubai. However, I claim that our government can not do business. The system sucks and no one dares this system no matter how rotten it appears. Politicians in general and Congress in particular have this sinful infatuation to maintain status quo on our bureaucratic system, while apparently striving for better governance. The truth is bad bureaucracy and good governance can not co-exist. A bureaucracy that espouses discretion, unaccountability, lack of trust in the form of checks and balances, and above all murkiness of policies can in no way permit decent governance, leave alone the job of doing business. We too appreciate the fact that such a bad bureaucracy suits the political parties and the bureaucrats to suck money & power out of the system for themselves. So could they let go so easily? Therefore it makes more sense to disinvest the majority stakes in SCI - sooner the better.
Brgds
Capt Rath
Econship Marine
704:5:6 Maithili's Signets 7th Floor,
Sector 30A Vashi Navi Mumbai 400 703.
704:5:6 Maithili's Signets 7th Floor,
Sector 30A Vashi Navi Mumbai 400 703.
Dir No : 6457 2316
Tel : +91 22 6457 2316 Fax: 27814294
Sales : 645723 18 to 19 Trade : 645723 29 to 31
Acc Adm Hr : 645723 20 to 23 IT : 6457 2324
Export & Customer Service : 645723 25 to 27
MSN : psrath@hotmail.com Skype : psrath
------------------------------------------------------------
No comments:
Post a Comment