The Hindu Business Line : God is about to appear

Why has the sudden proposal to have a single regulator for all PPP projects cropped up from the Planning Commission? An official who claims credit for getting all the PPP projects in India in the last five years, and who has a powerful backer in the form of the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, needs something to do after his retirement, say fellow bureaucrats. Back in the mid-1990s, the two played a stellar role in getting Enron in as well. The said official, sa y officials in the Ministry of Surface Transport, loves to play God. But going by the way his ways have held up investment in infrastructure, he seems to be a rather negative divinity who says tathastu at all the wrong times.

Spot the bigger bore

An enterprising man in Delhi has started taking bets on which the bigger bore is on TV: The election coverage or the IPL. Both start and end at about the same time. Both provide repetitive content. Both have the same anchors. Neither is able to vary the format. This, plus a host of other negatives, has prompted our man to start offering finely graded odds. He does not take bets on outcomes, as that would be illegal for cricket. Asked how he will judge who has won, he says he is following the sample survey method. Cagey about which is winning the boredom top spot at this time, he does hint that IPL has a slight edge. “But that will fade by the middle of this month,” he says.

Service hits a low

If proof is required of the need for the Government to stay out of service industries such as aviation, it is evident at the Delhi airport.

Regular travellers from the capital on the state-owned Air India (domestic) are amazed at how fast the on-ground service quality of the airline has dipped since a private sector airline moved to the newly opened terminal building here.

A colleague who was travelling with AI (domestic) recently was surprised to find that not only were there not enough check-in counters open at what was easily the peak time of travel, the airport was dirty and the staff was talking so loudly among themselves that passengers had to virtually scream to carry on a conversation.

This, our colleague recalled, was not the case just about three weeks back, when the private sector-led consortium, which is modernising the airport, was also looking after this terminal.

But, then, as they say, you can take a horse to the water but to get it to drink it is another story.

Tailpiece

There is common bond linking the UPA and NDA. It is good Colombian coffee. One of the senior leaders of the BJP always served it while briefing the media. So does Praful Patel. In the fullness of time, they will be remembered more for this than anything else.

OUR DELHI BUREAU