There is a relentless drive by the rulers to privatise public transport.
- We are now seeing the private take-over of individual trains of the Indian Railways.
- The Metro Rail policy of 2017 makes private participation mandatory in order to receive funds.
- The recent Motor Vehicles Act Amendment, 2019, is designed to push privatisation.
- The workers of the Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC) are facing autocratic repression in their struggle against privatisation; the chief minister has declared he will dismiss all 48,000 of them, and issue permits for all the routes in the state to private firms.
The authorities cannot state the real rationale for privatisation, namely, that it is merely a way of creating handsome profit-making opportunities for private capital. Hence they have to propagate all sorts of nonsense to justify this drive.
rupeindia 