Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia says: "What has happened (fuel price hike)... on that front it is a good news. I regard that as a vindication...(and) an increase in credibility of basic part of the reforms strategy"

what sort of an economist is this guy who claims that selling an essential commodity procured and refined for under Rs 30/- for more than Rs 70/- as credible. The proper term in economics for this action is profiteering.

In most parts of the civilized world, such antics would be called fraud (for lying that govt is subsidizing oil companies when it is actually making profits out of the sale), racketeering (all 3 oil companies acting as a cartel and raising prices simultaneously), conspiracy to defraud (for colluding with the blatant adulteration and meter adjustments perpetuated by petrol pump owners), and more... and people associated with such sham would be regarded as criminals.

The Train to Nowhere

If Napeoleon Boanparte called England the land of shopkeepers, India is surely the land of middlemen. The establishment does it best to make things as difficult as possible for the direct buyer of goods and services, and promote intermediaries. Nothing exemplifies this more than the reservation system adopted by Indian Railways.

The basic problem is too many people chasing too few seats. Effective utilization of available resources alone would sole the problem largely. But the mandarins of the railway board goes overboard to reduce the utilization of resources. Just for a case in point, the rake sharing of Tea Garden Express and Ernakulam-Bangalore Intercity, wherein two daily services could operate with just three rakes was discontinued and both trains now have dedicated rakes, a total of four rakes. The additional rake could instead have found better use to make the Kochuveli-Bangalore tri-weekly daily and thereby solve the problem of shortage of train tickets on the Kerala-Bangalore route considerably. Of course, if that happens luxury bus operators would loose their livelihood, as would touts who in connivance of booking clerks arrange for out of turn reservation tickets. So what we have here is social justice, Indian Railways style.

The social justice considerations of Indian Railways reinforces when one tries to access the IRCTC website to make tatkal reservation. The demand for tatkal tickets is direct fallout of both real and artificial scarcity fostered by railways would probably beat competition for manna from heaven, and as such, anyone even a few minutes late after the starting bell at 8 AM need bother. But try logging in to IRCTC from your individual user account. The server would not grant you access until 8.10. Rather try approaching your local ticket agent for the same ticket. The ticket, generated using the same IRCTC server would be delivered at your doorstep by 8.10, of course at a hefty premium.
Image Credit: flickr.com/Grey Rocker

If Highways Come, Can Highway Robbers Be Far Behind

If history gave Kochi the sobriquet “The Queen of the Arabian Sea” our present day crop of politicians, bureaucrats, and power brokers are busy providing her with a new sobriquet “The Robber of the East”

The British raj, whose sole purpose of existence in India was to loot the country’s resources constructed two large bridges in Kochi: the Venduruthy Bridge, and the Thoppumpady Bridge. They never collected toll on these bridges. Fast forward to circa 2000. We construct two bridges parallel to these two old bridges. And what do we do? The Gammon Bridge, build parallel to the Thoppumpady Bridge was the first instance of BOT or Build-Operate-Transfer in Kerala. So successful was this model for the powers that be, that they extended this concept all over India and now we probably have more toll booths than paan shops and kirana stores combined. For the record, when the public protested that the toll rates were too high, the powers that be responded by extending the period of toll collection from 13 years to 19 years!

Now, the parallel bridge for the Venduruthy Bridge, the Kundanoor Bridge has a similar story. This bridge, constructed much earlier than the infamous Gammon has already recovered the investment many times over, but toll collection continues. No prizes for guessing that the government never releases data regarding the amount collected. To add insult to injury, the bridge is in a depilated condition. The hapless citizen now have to pay about 30 percent of the vehicle cost as tax, nearly 50 percent of the cost of petrol as tax, toll tax, and then suffer from poor mileage and wear and tear of the vehicle owing to the potholes in the bridge, for the supposed maintenance of which the tollbooth exists. More fuel and more spares means more taxes, so it actually benefits the economy, our economists would argue.

Now, to Pulleppady Rail Overbridge, I guess the authorities mistook the abbreviation for Rail Over Bridge (ROB) as the actual word itself and took it as a license to ROB the hapless commuters who happen to ply that way. Now they are showing signs of desperation to demolish the North OverBridge and possibly install another ROB. This extreme eagerness comes when they have not been able to cut a single tree that has been obtruding traffic at Jos Jn. for over eighteen years now.

With public protests mounting on toll collections extending beyond the required period, the powers that be have now decided on a easier solution: collect toll perpetually. God says the world will end one day. But the charter to collect toll at Kumbalam, near the Aroor bridge proclaims that the toll collection shall go on FOREVER.

Image Credit: flickr.com/Ron Reiring

They Also Need to Serve Those Who Stand and Wait

Come election time, and all the hype and hoopla center around candidates, manifestos, party-hopping, and more. But spare a thought for the silent army of presiding officers and polling officers who constitute the backbone of the election exercise.

Polling officers have to be at the venue the night before. Very often, there are no proper arrangements for accommodation and food. Forced to put up in classrooms, they remain at the mercy of the natural elements a.k.a. mosquitoes, summer heat, and robbers. Ironically, such adversities may be a blessing in disguise, for the election commission mandates a minimum of 100 mock polling in each booth before start of the actual polling. Considering that the actual polling starts very early in the day, the mock polling has to start at least 5 AM to complete a century, and for this the presiding officers have to wake up at least by 4 PM.

You might have guessed it by now, the remuneration for the poll-duty arrives very late, if at all it.

If there is a survey on for agencies and companies taking care of its own, you can bet that the election commission will not top the list.