Should important services like transport be left to market forces?.

I believe that there should be a certain amount of private ownership for the basic services like transport, electricity e. T. C.

There are tremendous needs for development of infrastructure in our country and there is a huge fiscal burden on the government because of this. India is currently able to contribute only 4% of its GDP to infrastructure development, compared to countries like China, where 9% of GDP is spent. This is where the private sector can come in and contribute to infrastructure development in the form of partnerships with the government.

We have all seen the public-private cooperation during the development of the $400 million BAngalore international airport where the government partnered with Siemens and a Swiss group for its construction and maintenance by means of equity partnerships and because of this the government had to support only 18% of the total expenditure.

I believe that there are lots of room for development for our basic services. Electrification has been a big burden for the government because of rising population and the present condition of the central and state electricity departments are poor. Rural electrification has also been a big problem in implementation.

Also in the transportation sector, an infusion of private investment and technology will help in the modernization of Indian railways, faster development of roads and this combined with government monitoring to ensure that the citizens are benefited the most for these ventures, is the ultimate solution for our much-needed infrastructure development.

However they should not be completely left in the hands of the free market, as majority of India is below the poverty line and doing so may result in high prices for the basic necessities which the majority may not be able to afford. Hence close government monitoring of the prices is needed so that every common person may have the freedom to live with dignity and pride.

SO I believe that there should be a certain amount of private ownership for the basic services like transport, electricity e. T. C.

This type of services must remain with the Government because the private sectore only want their profit not the public requirment. But the basic problem is the quality. We can say that if there is competition between two or more players then the situation may be different and the quality of services may be better than today.

So they should comeup with public-private type of entity to have benifits of both.

Good Transport facilities is a dying need of developing country like india as most of t he people still leaves in villages and also about 50 % of people are below poverty line so they cant very much afford to buy a vehicle so if the transport fcilirties are godd it will reduce the neccesity to buy a vehicle and people will also be able to travel comfortably.

Actually if you leave the important and basic services as transport to market forces they will only focus on the areas from where they can actually make a buck like the cities and towns, but almost 60% of the Indian population lives in rural areas what about them? don't they have equal right to have transport facilities? so if the complete public transport will be left to private players I guess a majority of our population will be devoid of it completely.

Hello Friends !

I would like to initiate the group discussion.

In my opinion important services like transport should not be left to market forces.

As these important services like transport are essential for the fast growth and if left only to market forces we have to wait for long period to achieve optimum growth.

For example, for the expansion plan of the city if new transport facilities are not created by the government the common people or the labour force will face lot of difficulties to reach the new area of development and thus the growth will be affected. Also the private transporters will take undue charges from the people again affecting the growth. So proper policies should be created by the government to control the growth of the economy and not just leave the important services like transport to the market forces.