Tags:
Journalism of Courage
The mess at the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust near Mumbai is a source of immense anguish for the Indian economy. It is a vivid symbol of India8217;s incompetence in building modern infrastructure. It is clear that limited reform 8212; in this case privatisation of the port 8212; is not enough. The bottleneck created by the insufficient infrastructure of the Container Corporation of India, a PSU with a monopoly over moving containerised cargo across the country by rail, has not been addressed.
India has struggled for over a decade with problems of infrastructure. Manmohan Singh started off on the quest for the trinity comprising regulation, user charges and private sector production. In some areas, progress has been made. The best example is telecom, where VSNL was privatised and private players allowed. We have problems in the form of BSNL and MTNL which have not yet been privatised, and an improper legal and institutional framework for TRAI 8212; yet results are visible. Prices have collapsed, teledensity has exploded. In no other sector can Manmohan Singh similarly say 8220;mission accomplished8221;. Take the railways. It8217;s the most efficient form of transportation, but little reform has been undertaken. Everybody would agree that while a government can own a road, the private sector must not be excluded from running trucks and tempos on it. But in the railways, we are stuck with an inefficient monopoly government transportation company. In electricity, Delhi is the cynosure of attention, as a test case of how privatisation of distribution can work. But elsewhere, there is no progress on distribution. We still harbour biases against private and foreign firms who could assist in transmission, distribution and generation. The aviation sector remains a farcical story of not building good quality airports, and protecting Air India, Indian Airlines and Jet Airways. In the roads sector, while the new roads being built by NHAI are a quantum leap, a major shift in attitude is required, away from constructing roads to obtaining sustained speeds of 100 kph on them, with added emphasis on safety.
