Selling Family Silver

By rampant disinvestment in PSUs, the government is abdicating its social responsibilities. An extract

Derek O’Brien

Here’s a sampling of what was/is on offer at the Union government’s ‘Great Indian Sell-off’.

Air India

The government has sold 100 per cent stakes in Air India, along with a 100 per cent stake in the low-fare Air India Express and a 50 per cent holding in the ground-handling company Air India SATS Airport Services Private Limited or AISATS. Before its privatization, Air India and Air India Express together had a 12 per cent domestic market share and 43 per cent of the international market in India. The two companies serve 54 domestic cities and 43 international destinations.

Indian Railways

The Union government keeps denying that the Railways are being privatized. And yet we hear the Ministry or Railways announce that 151 trains on 109 pairs of routes will be operated by the private sector. The private sector will invest Rs 30,000 crore. Only the driver and guard (now redesignated as train manager) will be railways employes; all other will be on the rolls of the private operators of these trains. These private players will be free to procure trains and locomotives from any source of their choice. Who should one believe?

The Indian Railways is driven by a social obligation to provide basic transport facilities to people, and it provides a lifeline to several small and medium scale economic activities. Privatizing the Railways means privatizing the profit-making parts of the Railways and burdening the public sector with increased losses.

Ordnance Factories

The government has decided to corporatize the 41 ordnance factories across India into seven 100 per cent government-owned corporate entities, registered under the Companies Act 2013. Seventy-six