For a small amount you can travel all around the New York subway, and even use the same ticket for the connecting bus!
Because public utilities are meant to serve you - government investments to help you work efficiently, make more money and pay some back to the city as taxes from your profits.
That logical idea seems to have escaped our people.
Look at the escalation in bus tickets. Or at the metro, which was envisioned as the best way to zip across town without making your wallet weep. Or that flipping a light switch didn’t come with the fear of a monstrous electricity bill. Airports? Well, they were places to catch flights, not exorbitant parking charges, and entry fees.
Because someone in power had a grand, visionary, nation-transforming idea.
"Why should the government provide cheap, efficient services when private companies can do the opposite?"
And just like that, public utilities—the very backbone of any nation’s infrastructure—was placed on the great auction block. The result? What was once affordable is now inching towards unaffordable. What was once designed for public convenience is now optimized for corporate profit.
The metro was a simple, brilliant way to escape traffic? Now, as the lines are nearing completion, they make you wonder whether you should just walk instead, with ticket prices that require monthly budgeting.
Trains, too will soon join the party. Gone will be the days when you could hop onto an express train without worrying whether you'd have to sell a kidney for a ticket. With each step towards privatisation, the humble train journey will soon be transformed into an elite experience—while the ordinary passenger is left standing on the platform, wondering what happened to his seat.
And electricity—with private companies in charge, is no longer about keeping your home lit; it’s about how much they can charge you for the privilege. The shock doesn’t come from a short circuit or power surge anymore—it comes from the bill itself.
We are told that this is all in the name of development. That privatisation means "better services." What is not mentioned is that “better” means “more expensive.”
And where does all the money gained from selling these services to private companies go? Why, into “welfare schemes,” which is thousands of rupees deposited into bank accounts to get votes. What those poor voters don’t realise is that what is given with one hand, is taken away with the other.
So here we are, paying more for utilities meant to help us become more efficient and productive, but instead making billionaires out of certain businessmen!
Wake up dear people, before train travel feels as expensive as flying business class and electricity bills rival house rents, maybe then you’ll finally realize—privatisation isn’t development, it’s just a magic trick, actually a tragic trick which will end with government coffers running dry, even as our pockets get emptied..!
The Author conducts an online, eight session Writers and Speakers Course. If you’d like to join, do send a thumbs-up to WhatsApp number 9892572883 or send a message to bobsbanter@gmail.com
