Airport Privatization, Is It Just A Huge Con Job?

Airports facelift cost doubles, users may pay read newspaper headlines. For a minute I said fine, if we need good facilities we need to pay. But haven’t airports in major metros like Mumbai and Delhi been privatized? Precisely!

Expecting passengers to pay as long as the government was solely responsible for the upkeep and upgrade of airports is understandable and justified. But why should the traveler pay even after privatization?

My simple question is will these private players keep records of all those who travel by air and once they start making profits, send dividend checks to us for having contributed to the building and upkeep of their airports? If yes, then please go ahead and charge us. If no, then why and for what are we subsidizing private enterprises?

Aren’t these private players supposed to invest their monies, or borrow monies to grow their businesses? Aren’t their shareholders the ones who should be helping these companies with their finances? The why are ordinary passengers like you and me being asked to pay today for the future profits of these companies and their shareholders with no return for us, the humble passengers?

Aren’t we already paying for the upkeep and development of airports when we purchase tickets that include a host of taxes that are allegedly used for the very purposes that we are now expected to shell out money over and above the ticket price?

I hope that we the passengers rise in protest against this injustice and this post works as the initial call for a passenger war against this illegal practice of airlines and governments. Isn’t it the rule of business that greater the risk, greater the returns. Then why do these companies and the government expect us to fund the future profits of these corporate entities?

We, the passengers, need justice. Is the government listening? Or is it acting out its usual blind, dumb, deaf routine? Dear Prime Minister, we need some answers now.

Illiteracy Trumps The Literate

Shashi Tharoor has been asked by his party president to stop tweeting, and a senior minister wants professors at IITs to think knowledge, not wealth. What an irony, I say!

The highly educated Tharoor almost became the UN secretary general. Can we say the same of his lord and master, in academic as well as political terms? As for the senior minister, the less said the better. For someone who has already made his money by the ton, to now lecture on knowledge to some of the best minds in the country is the funniest joke that I have ever heard in my life.

We want our teachers to be the best in the world, but then if they talk money, we think it’s a crime. And our politcal parties want our best criminals in politics, and if we think that is a crime, we are dismissed as inconsequential. My India greatest, I say!

I guess now we know why India is like this only and in all likelihood will remain like this only! And to my friends with an excessively positive bent of mind, I say, it’s not that I wish India to be like this only, but if wishes were horses, then cows would fly, won’t they?