Jawaharlal Nehru described public sector organisations as the “temples of India”, and where such enterprises were not to be evaluated entirely from the profit angle. Ever since India availed of a bailout from the IMF as a part of a structural adjustment programme, we have committed ourselves to phasing out public sector organisations. Even the Prime Minister believes in Margaret Thatcher’s policy — “government has no business running business”, which is implied in ‘Minimum Government, Maximum Governance’. The agenda seems to be to finish off the public sector. A government which cannot successfully run a few business enterprises of its own cannot aspire to do great things for the nation (“A covert ‘surgical strike’,” Oct.24).
A.G. Rajmohan,Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh