counter to NAPM call

Counter to the Call by NAPM (National Alliance of People’s Movements) to boycott ‘Bottled Water’ from 2^nd Oct, ’05 (Gandhi Jayanthi day)

The government was likewise supposed to provide basic food items (through PDS), education, healthcare, electricity, public transport, telephony, etc etc. During Indira Gandhi's times, the role further got enlarged to include airline services, hotels, banking, cars, indeed the works. What we got was shoddy products and services. Eventually, everything came crashing down, like in Soviet Russia. Socialism can only be preached, not practised.

With privatisation, we now have world - class telephone, airline, banking, insurance, courier, healthcare services, and all at much cheaper costs.

Water bottling industry has made good quality water available right through the country, which no municipal supply can ever hope to match. What is there if you have to pay for it? Would you rather pay the doctor's bills? While, admittedly, there should be governmental regulation on exploitation of a scarce natural resource like water, we certainly cannot afford the inefficiencies of government organisations in processing and distribution. It should totally switch to the private sector.

On this Gandhi Jayanti, let's all demand that. Gandhiji would have been the first to dump our PSU's.