January 3, 2008 ☼ Economy ☼ governance ☼ government failure ☼ nationalisation ☼ Public Policy ☼ public services ☼ Tamil Nadu ☼ West Bengal
This is an archived blog post from The Acorn.
(Tamil Nadu) Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi said on Thursday that his government was firm on the announcement made on Wednesday on nationalisation of some industries.
In an attempt to make available cement at an affordable rate, the State Government on Wednesday decided that cement will be sold through the Civil Supplies Corporation’s warehouses at cost price.
At a function to mark handing over 1,094 buses to transport corporations here, the Chief Minister refrained from naming the industry the government intended to take over, but referred to it as “some industries that the government announced yesterday [for nationalisation].”
Mr. Karunanidhi recalled that when the DMK government decided to nationalise private transport corporations and approached them, owners of the corporations had cooperated.
They even attended the function held to mark the transport nationalisation project.
“Like that in the future, the government has announced that it will nationalise some industries. When an event of that nature is happening, I believe that the industrialists will come and felicitate us,” he said. [The Hindu]Now what kind of industrialist will felicitate the government for taking over his business? Ans: (a) the kind that is glad to get rid of a troubled, loss-making venture and (b) the kind that is forced to grin and bear it.
But really, it’s not just a question about whether industrialists line up to garland Karunanidhi. It’s a question of whether ordinary people will be any better off. It is only a scriptwriter’s fantasy to believe that selling cement at cost in government shops will make it available, and at affordable rates.
Only when all the non-grinning industrialists, non-lossmaking industrialists had fled the state did another chief minister realise:
“We have to accept capitalism; where is State capital? This is being realistic in a situation where there is no alternative,” (West Bengal chief minister) Buddhadeb Bhattacharya said while addressing an audience on the occasion of the 42nd foundation day of Ganashakti, the Bengali daily and mouthpiece of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). [The Hindu]
But Tamil movies are not know to take ideas from Bengali ones.
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