management wizardry

text of letter sent to New Indian Express:

I refer to the report in you columns today (August 28th,’07) under the caption 'pending subsidy release in phases', alluding to a statement made by the CM that pending subsidy amounts of the orders of Rs 2400 crores will be released to the ESCOMS ‘without affecting their working’.

Now, Rs 2400 crores is a lot of money. In quite a few cases, the respective allocations are higher than even the annual revenue earnings of some of the ESCOMS. If their release has to await the benevolence of the CM, then it will require far greater expertise than available at even our IIM’s to manage them ‘without affecting their working’. Besides, this whole arrangement cannot be defined as a business any longer. So, why the pretense of running them as businesses when, by classifying as ‘social services’, the government can earn the goodwill of the ‘aam aadmi’, as also become eligible for exemption from the various central levies?

And, as for industry, business, trade and the upper classes, anyway they are hardly dependent on the ESCOMS for their needs.