Enough of misleading people!

The great CPM ideologue Mr Sitaram Yechuri had an interesting piece in Hindustan Times. Interesting because he raises important issues and completely obfuscates them. The gist of his argument is that Public Private Partnership (PPP) in infrastructure projects is a scam that "may end up promoting private profit-making with public money".
Read the full article in Hindustan Times..
Let me quote another important observation of his from the same article- "The government, we are told, needs to move out of areas like hotels, etc (even while making profits) and concentrate on education and health. Then, we are told, since adequate resources are not available, both education and health need to be privatised. The government must concentrate on sanitation and water supply. And, now, we are told, that in this area as well, PPPs with user charges must be brought in."
The leader notices important symptoms but gets the diagnosis all wrong. I agree, government needn't move out just to give profit to select corporates. The nub of the argument is that we accept that the government has a right to favor select corporates? Why should that be? What makes a random babu in some ministry an arbiter of what I or another guy is capable of? Should not an enterprise be left to the entrepreneurs and government do the task of government. If I look at what MUST be a state concern - the police, the law and order, the emergency response systems, public health and sanitation, town planning- all are in shambles. An organization that so throughly messes up its primary responsibilities, then claims that they are the only ones competent to run Hotels? (HOTELS run by government? Why on earth?).
What our esteemed leader very conveniently leaves out is the performance of the government. Let us for a moment believe that the private parties are only there to mint money at the expense of the poor. What is the alternatives? I do not have this data but I am sure that if we take the amount spent my government on social schemes over a decent time period, just distribute the same amount directly to poor, have the profiteers do that work instead and charge a usage fee. I have a hunch that the money directly given to poor in place of government scheme will have some left over after the poor have used the money to pay the bills.
He makes an excellant point about education. The problem is not so much as of money as it is of accountability. The government schools are so useless that poor folks who want to educate their kids actually suffer deprivation and send their kids to private schools and THAT is what should have been discussed by Mr Yechuri but he will not because that is his votebank, not the poor kid in govt school with no future due to lack of proper education.
And why do we always raise this bogey of poor not being able to afford something? Do the poor get water now? or sanitation? or health services. The leaders who have rooms reserved for them in top hospitals, who fly to US for each of their treatment even know the kind of hospitals available to commoners. A recent report in Indian Express showed stray dogs roaming around in the city hospital in Pune (Sassoon Hospital). And mind you this is the district hospital of Pune - very big, rich and educated city. Now think of what will be the condition in small towns in hinterland India. So by preventing top private hospitals to come in, the poor don't get treated any better.
I do agree that government needn't subsidize the rich. No need to give land to Apollo for 1 rupee an acre. Let them buy land from market. Incidentally its the CPM governemt in West Bengal state which is in dock for forcibly buying land at cheap prices and giving it to a private firm. And India's political classes' favorite whipping party the BJP government in Gujrat (who incidentally I think did commit state sponsored atrocities) who have let the industry directly negotiate with farmers. The CM of WB is right, the only way to get living standard of villages up is by going for industrialization. We have too many people dependent on too little land for agriculture but no one tries to point that out.
Please read the excellent analysis by Swaminath Ankeleshwar Iyer in Economictimes.indiatimes.com on why the revised policy on SEZ after the messup in Nandigram chucks all the good out and retains all the bad in.
To those who still don't get it that growth is the best way to get people out of poverty should read the same columnist in Laloo Yadav beats Nehru hollow.