Sunil Jain (“Give us a break, Mr Sreedharan”, October 6) has done well to bring out the concessions the Delhi metro has got and to contrast this with the lack of concessions given to the Hyderabad metro. By implication, Jain argues that metros based on public private partnerships are the better bet. This need not necessarily be so, and the history of infrastructure concessions the world over has been one of renegotiate, renegotiate, renegotiate. Bidders bid aggressively, get the contracts and then, after a few years, fail to deliver — at this point, they choose to renegotiate and, given that the government is in a jam since the facility has not come up, it usually tends to give in. This is what happened in the case of the telecom licenses in 1999.
So while Jain’s article was welcome, he should have balanced this by explaining the options before the government. One such option is to seriously examine the financial viability of various bids instead of just accepting bids which are the highest. This is also the problem seen in the case of ports and airports where the financial revenue share bids are so high, they cannot possibly be met if the franchisee has to remain solvent. Unless this is done, PPP is doomed to fail. Till then, maybe negotiated deals or ones like the Delhi Metro are a better solution.
Sanjiv Sinha, New Delhi
What cream?
The government decision to increase the income cut off for the creamy layer (“Skimming the cream”, October 7) is unfortunate. It seeks to nullify the impact of the Supreme Court verdict on keeping the creamy layer out of the ambit of reservations. As you have pointed out, the only solution now is to ensure the merit criterion is not diluted — though as you have said, this is not the ruling of the court but is more in the nature of guidance. Perhaps it is time for the anti-reservationist students in the IITs and medical schools like AIIMS to approach the court asking it for specific directions on the matter.
If the merit criterion is preserved, no one can possibly have any objections to the reservation plan. The way the government worked it out, the number of seats that were got by non-SC/ST/OBC students remain exactly the same and this has been done by increasing the total number of seats in each institution. If the merit criterion remains, and the OBCs are genuinely not smart enough to get admission with the 5-10 per cent relaxation in marks, the empty seats will be added to the general category. That is, the general category students will now have more seats to compete for, provided that merit is not sacrificed.
Usha Gupta, Mumbai
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Lessons for Paulson
This refers to “Rescuing finance capitalism” by A V Rajwade (October 6). The US and UK can learn from Indian experience: Ever since Charan Singh waived off agri-loans of banks, we have bailed out three weak banks at a cost of over Rs 20,000 crore in re-capitalisation, UTI with about Rs 14,000 crore and, more recently, have given a waiver of agri-loans costing more than Rs 70,000 crore.
One has lost count of funding done for PSUs over the years. Air India and the oil companies are waiting for their turn. All of these have been done without much debate. It seems our system of governance seeks no accountability.
P V Maiya, on e-mail