Consider this Star of Mysore editorial about an amendment to the 1898 Indian Post Office Act. Since the link would not work after today, let me quote some excerpts.
The 1898 Act gave exclusive rights to the department of posts to carry letters. Private couriers were, therefore, allowed to carry only documents. Since the dividing line between letters and documents is thin, the courier companies were carrying both all these years. Result: the department of posts began feeling the impact. Its share of the market was falling, its income was dipping and its share to the exchequer was plunging.
What the new amendment does is to remove the debatable distinction between letters and documents. Now, all letters and documents below 500 grams will be the exclusive privy of posts, and everything above that will be free to be carried by anybody. However, in a market that is rapidly opening up, the amendment represents a barely concealed bid at controlling how the people can or cannot send their mail.
Yes, postmen (and women) with the full weight of no-questions-asked central government salaries behind them will begin to carry bags full of letters once again, but surely hundreds of thousands of young boys who make a living delivering letters will be driven to extinction? If the postal department has reached this state, it is largely because of its own inadequacies and inefficiencies. Will that situation be rectified by gifting it a largesse on a platter? Or by prodding it to introduce newer products, better technology, and allowing it to compete with the couriers?
Kaushik Basu, the well known Indian economist at Cornell, comments on this amendment. Basu is absolutely right, when he says:
If government has to raise more funds, it is best to do it by the direct method of some form of taxation, instead of compelling citizens to buy an inferior service.
It is really interesting to see how the ministries of Home, Information and Broadcasting, Information Technology, Communications and Telecom have often used since the 1990s, in this era of liberalization, Acts passed by the colonial State between 1880-1900 to formulate public policy. The delicious irony of it all lies in this simple fact: the most creative use of these old Acts has been to protect the public sector goliaths like Doordarshan. May I remind you all of how Doordarshan had sought to use the Telegraph Act of 1885 to claim state monopoly over airwaves, until the Supreme Court intervened and declared airwaves to be public property, thus allowing BCCI to sell broadcast rights to whomsoever it pleased. Well, to the highest bidder. While the ruling spared us from bad quality telecast, shoddy camerawork and awful commentary, it also led to BCCI transforming itself into a drunken elephant. But that’s another matter.
This morning, I am still wondering: how the hell does one match this bureaucratic ingenuity! I am glad these guys are not historians. Otherwise, I could never hope to find a job!
2 Comments
prithvi,i must say you are really magnanimous with all those comments you have made about doordarshan.i wonder what your comments would be if you were to undergo one month’s internship in doordarshan kendra.
yo, i was actually being ironic. my point was about the total absurdity of using the Telegraph Act from 1885 to seek monopoly over airwaves and satellite broadcasting. i know what you mean by one months’ internship but believe me being a research or teaching assistant in a university is no walk in the park!
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