Tag Archives: privatisation

‘Government has no Business to be in Business’ – Modi

02 Thursday Oct 2014

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Prime Minister Modi has stated at Washington at the end of his US tour that the “Government has no business to be in business”.

It is not a new slogan. The Bajpai Government earlier used the same slogan in a different way stating that ” Business is not the business of the government.” And then government started privatising PSUs one after another like BALCO, ITC Hotels and so on.

But the original slogan have another owner. It is the World Bank, which mooted the slogan. Both NDA and UPA governments were only repeating what the World Bank has told.

The PSUs have always been a thorn in the eyes of the private sector and the world financial institutions, since they put barriers in the maximisation of profits by the MNCs and big business. The Modi Government wants to remove this barrier by privatising the PSUs. Since the NDA government has got brutal majority, it feels that it can do this easily.

But the democratic forces will not allow such a thing to happen. The Trade unions in the country will also not allow such demolition of PSUs. The workers have to be vigilant and prepared for united struggles to save the PSUs.

Oppose FCI Privatisation

21 Sunday Sep 2014

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Food Corporation of India (FCI) was formed in 1965 as a Public Sector for proper collection and distribution of food grains to the people, especially in the rural areas. It collects the grains from the surplus states, stores it and distributes to the required places. This was being efficiently done till a few years back. Major wheat producers are Punjab and Haryana and rice producers are A.P. and W.Bengal. The grains are procured from these states and distributed to other states. This is the responsibility of the Central Government and FCI is the distribution agency.

Now the NDA government is on the move to privatise FCI. First bifurcate in to three separate units and then gradually privatise. Such a decision will be harmful to the people since the private companies are only interested in increasing their profit and not the benefit to the people.

The Unions in the FCI have strongly protested the privatisation move. We fully support and extend our solidarity to the struggle of the FCI workers to save FCI and the people.

Privatisation of Railway Stations ?

04 Friday Jul 2014

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In the name of improving the Railway Stations in the country, the NDA government seems to be in the process of privatising them or at least allowing private participation. This is what can be assumed from the speech of Prime minister Narendra Modi while inaugurating the Katra-Udhampur train in Jammu and Kashmir.
The case of Airport is there where Mumbai and Delhi Airport has been entrusted with private companies from the Airport Authority. While Airport Authority did not charge anything from the passengers, the private companies are charging hefty amount. In addition everything connected with these airports have become costlier. From tea and coffee to parking as well taxi charges.
If private participation is allowed the same thing will be repeated.
The people have to think whether privatisation of railway Stations is necessary?

No Immediate Privatisation of Air India – Minister

30 Friday May 2014

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NEW DELHI: Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju Pusapati has stated that the public sector does have a place in the overall growth of airlines industry, suggesting that he is against the government exiting the running of national carrier Air India despite its huge losses and debt.

“Just because a company belongs to the public sector, one should not be against it. But it has to perform,” said the Minister. (Courtesy : ET).

So at least immediately, there is no plan for privatisation of Air India by the NDA Government.

Airport Employees protest against Privatisation

15 Saturday Mar 2014

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The Airport Authority Employees Union (AAEU) has strongly protested against the high speed process of files by the government for privatising the six major profitable airports, Chennai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Guwahati, Lucknow and Jaipur. These are proposed to be given to the private companies on lease for 30 Years. The AAI has spent Rs. 5,000 crore on modification of the Kolkata and Chennai airports alone recently. The other airports have also been modernised. After spending all these PSU money, the government wants to hand over them to the private companies to corner the profits. It is a shame for the government. The UPA government is shameless in such open gifts to the private companies. In the last phase of the government, when the election has already been announced, it is a clear violation of the election code. It is understood that the Planning Commission is pressing for early privatisation. If all the profitable airports are privatised, then there will be only loss-making airports with AAI. This is what the government also wants. Many PSUs have been made non-profitable by the government like this to suit their private bosses.

Scrap the Airports Privatisation

15 Saturday Feb 2014

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The Government has been compelled to postpone the privatisation of the six airports viz. Kolkata, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Lucknow and Guwahati to March due to certain technical issues.

All these airports have already been modernised by Airport Authority of India (AAI), the PSU, at a high cost to the exchequer. The modernisation of Kolkata and Chennai airports had cost the AAI Rs 2,325 crore and Rs 2,015 crore respectively. The cases of other airports are also not different.

It is surprising how the UPA govt. is selling these airports along with the adjacent lands to the private companies at very meagre amount. The windfall benefit got to GMR, the private company which took over the Delhi Airport from the AAI is well known. The CAG has also pointed out the same. Despite that, the government is moving to privatise the other major profitable airports leaving the loss making ones to the AAI.

After privatisation of the airports, the price of car-parking, tea, coffee, snacks, for every thing has more than doubled up.The privatisation is only to maximise the profit of the private companies.

There should be strong protest against selling of these national assets for meagre price. These airports should continue with the AAI. Privatisation should be stopped.

AP High Court suspends privatisation of Nizam Sugars Ltd.

09 Thursday Jan 2014

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HYDERABAD, JAN. 9:
The Andhra Pradesh High Court has suspended an Andhra Pradesh Government order that constituted a Group of Ministers (GoM) to review the course of action to be taken on the privatisation of Nizam Sugars Limited.

Acting on a public interesting litigation (PIL) filed by M Appi Reddy, Convenor of Nizam Sugars Protection Committee and others, the court has asked the State Government not to take any action on the privatisation of the sugar factory till it took a final view on the issue.

The GoM comprised Finance Minister Anam Ramanarayana Reddy, Major Industries and Sugar Minister J Geetha Reddy and Minister for Major and Minor Irrigation P Sudarshan Reddy. The Committee filed the PIL, challenging the GO (issued in December 2013).

The privatisation of Nizam Sugars Limited is one of the several issues on the agenda of pro-Telangana activists. The sugar factory, based in Nizamabad district, was set up by the Nizams about 80 years ago and went on to make profits till the end of the century. But the then Telugu Desam Government had decided to privatise the factory after it began to post losses.

“The High Court bench that heard the PIL directed the Government not to take any action on the PIL it further orders,” Chikkudu Prabhakar, Counsel for the petitioner, told Business Line.

Various Telangana political parties and organisations have threatened to launch an agitation, demanding the government to nationalise the sugar factory. (Business Line)

Selling of the Nation’s Wealth is High Agenda for Government

02 Monday Dec 2013

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One of the most important agenda of the UPA-II government has been and is the selling of the Nation’s wealth to the private on the plea of reducing the financial crunch. But it is more than that. The government wants to wealth of the Nation’s wealth for maximising the profit of the private corporates.
Tomorrow, 3rd December 2013, a meeting of the high level Ministers are going to take place to speed up the Disinvestment process. A target of Rs.40,000 crore was fixed for 2013-14 through selling shares of PSUs, but so after it has received only Rs. 1325 crores by selling shares of six PSUs.
Government wanted to disinvest 10% shares of Coal India Ltd. but due to strong opposition from the trade unions, it could not be done. Now the government is proposing to sell 5% of the shares of CIL. Government has 90% shares in CIL now.
Further the government is proposing to hand over the balance shares of 49% shares of BALCO and 29.5% shares of Hindustan Zinc Ltd., the majority shares of which are are already with Vedanta group of companies. These were sold in 2001-03 despite strong opposition and strike from the unions. Now both these will be fully under the private companies. This is what the government wants to do with all PSUs one after another.
I am sure the workers of these PSUs will fight against this privatisation process. They should be given full support and solidarity.

Aviation Minister Ajit Singh back-tracks of Air India Privatisation

07 Monday Oct 2013

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Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Sinch has been compelled to back- track from his statement on privatisation of Air India. Left Parties, BJP and other leaders have severely criticised the Minister for his statement that Air India will be privatised.
After the severe criticism the Minister has disowned his statement and stated that there is no proposal for privatisation of Air India. So far, so good!

But the mindset of the Minister as well as the government is clear. They were waiting for a chance to privatise each and every PSU. To justify their intent, they are putting all obstacles in the functioning of the PSUs to make them weak and financially unviable. Only sustained struggle and mobilisation of the people will be able to stop the government from their ill-advised policy of disinvestment and privatisation.