The UPA government’s decision to disinvest 10 per cent of the stakes in all listed Public Sector Undertakings has signified that it did not learn a lesson from the recent financial tsunami. When financial behemoths like AIG and Lehman brothers crumbled under the weight of capitalistic decadence, the U.S. government tried to salvage them by buying their toxic reserves. Quite reverse, the Indian government is selling the stakes of profit-making PSUs, which will eventually fall into the hands of Tatas and Ambanis. By telling that the proceeds of disinvestment are meant for funding the social security schemes like NREGA, the UPA government is camouflaging its plan of peddling the neo-liberal reforms. Instead of spoiling the family silver in the name of feeding the aam admi, it would do well by catching hundreds of Madhu Kodas in the country who have stashed billions of dollars in the Swiss bank.
Syed Sultan Mohiddin
Kadapa, A.P.