The first and foremost demand of WB and IMF on the governments of developing countries is that they have no business to run any commercial venture. If it is there, it should be handed over to the private sector without any further loss of time. To implement that directive Congress Govt. of Narasimha Rao started selling public sector units in early 1990s and now NDA Govt. is in utter hurry to hand them over (outwardly showing as sale to the highest bidder) to their friends and relations, both Indian and foreign. Look at the hurry these criminal politicians (claiming nationalists) are in! The Cabinet Committee on Disinvesment met in the evening of this year’s Republic Day (all the members present were only from BJP and no member from any of the coalition group was there) and decided on the sale of two oil PSUs, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd. (HPCL) and Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd. (BPCL). But the same Cabinet never thought it proper to meet when Gujarat was devastated by earthquake on another Republic Day in 2001!

The logic used to sell public sector units is that government does not have the expertise to run commercial units and that is why almost all of them are in the red when units in the private sector are growing like an ever expanding banyan tree. They ask the countrymen, as if they are primary school students, to have a look at Ambanis, Birlas, Tatas and so on. Are they not proud institutions of any country? Ordinary citizens of this country, who are kept illiterate and hungry for generations, may ask some simple but baffling questions. That if these private sector organisations are so successful and overflowing with ever-growing surpluses, why do not they pay back their outstanding bank loans (NPA) running into more than one lakh crores of rupees; why do they evade taxes if they earn fabulous profits regularly and MAT was to be introduced to extract some paltry direct taxes; those who earn profits and have to pay taxes – why do they have tax arrears to the tune of Rs. 86,400 crores as on 31st March 2002. Definitely by the end of this fiscal year this figure will go up. Centre is chasing to sale 240 PSUs with total equity of only Rs 78,484 crores, is it not better to request champions of privatization to follow the law and behave accordingly.  Why our own finance companies and many foreign finance companies evade paying Capital Gain Tax and get fake registration certificates from Mauritius?

Many transnational corporations like the mighty Enron of USA had to knock the doors of bankruptcy courts as recently as last quarter of 2002 while showing in their audited financial statements huge surpluses and growing net worth. One of the largest international Auditing firms, Anderson, was caught red handed certifying fraudulent accounts and was thrown into dissolution dustbin. Still capitalism shows the courage to survive and dominate world economy! What are they doing in Davos? Capitalism has no answer to why Japan failed miserably to come out of recession during the last 12 years. Why the leaders of transnational corporations cannot see the clear writings on the wall that the ideology of maximising profit and destruction of earth’s natural resources in the long run will only bring in horrible destruction and untold suffering to the people of the developed world also? To save deep and widespread recession-hit capitalist economy like USA’s, mentally sick and warmongerer President Bush recently announced huge budgetary concessions of around $700 billion for next ten years, but maximum benefit will accrue to the rich and affluent section to which the President Bush and the Vice-President belong; wage earners are given false assurance of job retention and new job creation. Japan has experimented with this over the last twelve long years but it is fighting a losing battle to stop growing unemployment and wage cut. So if we continue to follow the same path of privatization and corporatization for which governments of the developed world are crying, a country of one and an odd billion, vast majority of whom are already starving and sick, will face sure and certain destruction. Neither these politicians nor their sycophant bureaucrats with their leaders in trade and industry will be there to be spectator to the worst catastrophe of 21st century!

Government claims that if it is relieved of these Public Sector Units, it will be able to look after the social sectors in a better way and definitely there will be better governance of the country. But combined social sector expenditure of both Centre and the States fell from 7.74% of GDP in 1987-88 to 6.97% of GDP in 2000-01. On the other hand, expenditures on social services as a percentage on aggregate disbursements declined from 33-34% in the pre-1991 years to just about 30% in the late 1990s against the UNDP recommendation of more than 40%. Again we have to remember World Bank’s insistence that there cannot be any ‘free lunch’. In the capital of the country, we have a large number of huge public hospital buildings with the worst management; and at any point of time the number of patients floating on the dirty corridors of these hospitals outnumber those who are fortunate enough to get hold of the rotten beds. It is not very pleasant to say that PIL had to be filed against such institutions run by the government for supplying patients with medicines long after their expiry dates. Medicines which are supposed to be distributed free of cost are always in short supply and poor patients are advised to purchase them from the market. Moreover, it is a scandal that the medicines supplied from government hospitals in our country are always substandard in quality because the mafia nexus in health administration and pharmaceutical companies have spread their net wide and deep. Recently our actor-turned-Central Health Minister ordered an increase of all charges in the public hospitals, irrespective of whether all patients can pay. But our VIPs will continue to get free medical treatment from top ranking public hospitals. The Govt. sold crores of rupees worth of public land to Apollo Hospital management in Delhi for a very insignificant amount of Re.1! As primary health centres in the country are only on government files, every morning thousands of patients from various parts of the country land in Delhi and these patients are never treated as human beings by these institutions and touts have a field day, extorting money from these hapless patients.

In the same manner, so far as Education is concerned, the Centre has completely washed off its hands from this sector though for some petty political gain they ammended the Constitution to show that primary education is a fundamental right. To make the academicians fight amongst themselves, RSS cleverly introduced in the school textbooks their own unscientific interpretations of social sciences. For proper education and character building at the school level, government refuses to provide adequate resources. Rather it takes huge foreign loan in the name of education, but one does not know where that money goes. There is no transparency in the administration of government schools. So BJP Govt. has compelled the ordinary people either to be victims of greedy private educational companies or to keep the children at home depriving them the right to education. In higher education it is a question of time when UGC will be asked by the Central Government to close down its shop as the country’s technical and so-called higher education systems are totally handed over to money making private capitation fee-charging companies. Foreign unrecognised institutions are growing like mushrooms and they are cheating our youth with degrees and diplomas against very high fees but no one guarantees the credibility of these degrees. The present government has allowed all types of crooks to exploit our innocent youth because they are in urgent need of jobs and for that they are forced to pay any price for fake degrees and diplomas. Most of them get frustrated when they are examined by their prospective employers and rejected as unfit. Government is aiding and abetting such massive frauds. Thus both in health and in education, government’s policy is to dismantle govt. funded institutions and to encourage private initiatives, and in that process only the rich and upper middle classes will be benefited and vast majority of people who are poor and cannot pay will suffer indefinitely, will perpetually be condemned to unskilled labour.

Atal Behari Vajpayee Government is successful, through high profile media campaign, in projecting ‘Pakistani Terrorism’ as the agenda number one of this Govt. especially after the September 11 incident. It is well known to the RSS hawks that have to keep their Hindu fundamentalists together, that so long as US support the present dictator of Pakistan, Indian Government can only bark but it does not have the teeth to bite. When Ms. Sonia Gandhi claims superiority of Ms. Indira Gandhi’s policy on Pakistan over Shri Atal Behari Vajpayee, RSS hawk Deputy Prime Minister has no answer. So millions of poor people of this country from Kanyakumari to Leh and from Kohima to Kutch are demanding from Government of India employment opportunities in the villages and in urban areas, but RSS controlled Central Government is least interested and absolutely incapable to meet their minimum demands. They are asked by Shri L.K. Advani to wait till the Government kicks out all Bangladeshis and Pakistanis from Indian soil!

‘Vision 2020’ published by Planning Commission promising 10 million additional jobs every year for the next 18 years, is the latest bluff and adds salt to the injury of increasing number of unemployed people of this country. So the argument that elected Govts. should be allowed to govern the country and should not run any business, appears from our experience of more than 50 years in this subcontinent, absolutely hollow and baseless. These bunch of criminals and crooked politicians get elected from Panchayat level to Parliament by spending tonnes of black money and after getting elected it is their main business to earn much more than what they invested in election. The business of running a government is so lucrative that  to win elections if one has to kill innocent citizens in thousands it should be implemented and there should not be any regret. The Gujarat experience may be used in many other states by our criminal politicians. These shameless politicians do not feel ashamed to invite Non-Resident Indians and give them good food and costly gifts and request them to forget these organized killings by one of their governments and their own leaders.

If we understand the self-interest of the big powers and the galloping greed of our politicians and bureaucracy, the philosophy of disinvestment of public sector units gets much clearer. Previously these politicians promised that the proceeds from disinvestment will be used in the social sectors, especially in health and education, but now they do not have any pretensions. As next budget presentation is round the corner, the Disinvestment Minister, Arun Shourie, is feeling shaky that he could collect only one-fourth of what he was supposed to collect. He has sold out govt. share in Maruti, IPCL and in some ITDC hotels and till today failed to meet his promised target. He had to sell HPCL and BPCL, NALCO and others this financial year. So he is in a big hurry and wants to complete the procedures before 31st March 2003. During the last three and a half years, Vajpayee Govt.’s total collections from sale of PSUs remained much lower than what it was promised. This is shown below:

1. Figures in brackets show number of PSUs shares sold

2. Source: The Economic Times of 3rd June 2002

The above figures clearly explain that though the government wants to generate more and more resources to bridge the gap between recurring expenses and revenue receipts by selling the Public Sector Units, the gap is growing and its international lenders are pressurizing it to do the job as early as possible. Arun Shourie is the latest nominee of these big international corporations and it is clear that even such a vocal and clever RSS activist failed miserably to help his masters. But the job has to be done and completed without any further loss of time.

We are not raising here a lot of other economic issues including the price fixed by the politicians in league with so-called expert valuers (whose credibility is fully exposed by collapse of Anderson House and our Institute of Chartered Accountants is still sleeping on this issue). Only on one point we shall touch upon and that is the valuation of land of those units sold. It is socially relevant today. When 74% share of Modern Food was sold to Hindustan Lever, an MNC, for Rs. 105 crores, people asked for the value of the land sold and government replied that unless the unit is sold they are not going to get any price for the land. Now, HLL owns 100% share of Modern Food. Which government can stop HLL from selling the company to someone else and will they not take into account the value of crores of worth of land at its disposal? VSNL was sold to Tata, but in this valuation the BJP Govt. forgot to charge for the land value owned by VSNL in the heart of Delhi, South Delhi and Pune. In the case of BALCO sale to BJP’s friend, they forgot not only to take into account valuation of land and minerals lying under the soil but also the thermal plant which was handed over to them for a song. 

When the case of BALCO came up for hearing in the Supreme Court, our learned judges refused to interfere and agreed with what the Govt. did. The learned judges of Delhi High Court, on the other hand, took a diametrically opposite view when resettlement of people living in jhuggi came before them. These helpless people are living in inhuman conditions on govt. land, when the elites of this metropolis have pocketed all the comforts of life. Whenever in the past, govt. had to throw them from their unauthorized settlements, they were allotted very small pieces of land. It started with 25 square yards during Emergency, now around 10-12 square meters are given per family against a subsidised price. Recent Delhi High Court decision is to throw them away from unauthorized occupation and not allot any land at concessional rate. Government land in Delhi according to the learned judges can not used for charity. But how is it that the same learned judges in the apex court refused to see the Himalayan loot of public money in broad day light in the form of disinvestment of PSUs and the purchasers were specifically told not to pay anything for the land acquired. Thus the signal is unambiguous and clear, both the executive and the judiciary of the country are in league to help the rich to grow richer and condemn the poor to eternal starvation and ultimate death.                                                                                       

The seeds of dissatisfaction and discontent are growing at a faster speed through out the globe. People in different parts of the world are awakening and rising and their risings are taking threatening tones.