We have had four lockdowns and unlocks across the country.To start with it was Complete lockdown, which struck like a bolt from the blue starting from March 24th till May 31st 2020. Many prominent opposition leaders severely criticized the Govt for this lockdown accusing Modi of dictatorship tendency throwing the hungry, poverty-stricken, migrants on the streets and pavements uncared for. The second lockdown little relaxed was in June as experimentation and once the pandemic started spreading wildly, Govt. was again back to stricter lockdowns. But by the end of june, Central Govt realized that the question of livelihood was becoming important and advised staggered unlocks.
But many states ruled by opposition leaders taking a holier than Centre attitude continued with strict lockdowns introducing epasses even for intrastate movements, imposing restrictions like total lockdowns during weekends making life difficult for the common man. There was a tough competition between states as to who leads in making life miserable for the man on the street.
Now the whole world is praising Modi for his foresight in clamping down a total lockdown inorder to control the spread of the pandemic. Opposition leaders have grudgingly acknowledging this, have now started saying that because of lockdown Indian economy is in ruins.
India had to face many unwanted human tragedies in between due to industrial accidents in Vizag, Neyveli,etc.fire accidents, air accident in Kochi, and also serious border clashes with China apart from terrorist incursions in J&K from Pak.
In the meantime, Central Govt unveiled Atmanirbhar initiatives, Agri reforms, and announced Rs.21 lac crore package of measures to revive the economy.
In the melee that followed, India is still left with some white elephants like Air India which are a drain on the exchequer.Air India should have been corporatized, separating the ownership and the management at least five years back. Had Central Govt taken this bold step at that time we would have found real value of the Air India as a Corporate entity. We understand that when Jitendra Bhargava wrote a book "Descent of Air India", it kicked off a political storm with Praful Patel filing a defamation case in the court to get a ban on the book. But the author self-released it in 2016 and is available on Amazon kindle as an e-book.Praful Patel withdrew his defamation suit in 2017.
Now with Air India only its Intangible asset of Bilateral Landing Rights is the most valuable of all assets.This has been brought out by Kumar V.Pratap former Joint Secy,GOI, in his recent article in FE wherein he has said that Planning Commission in 2011,refused permission to publish his earlier article on Privatisation of Air India(see the link) .Now the quotes for the sale of Air India have been invited through a global tendering process. The last date for submission of bids have also been so far postponed 4 times and now the last date stands at 31st Oct.When Travel & tourism and more particularly the aviation sector around the world has been severely crippled by the pandemic , finding a suitable bidder would be highly improbable. But Govt is left with Hobson's choice now.It has to bide its time for a suitor when the airline continues to lose its value and burn tax payers' money.
BPCL sale tendering process also is in the limbo due to the prevailing uncertainty induced by the pandemic. Other PSU divestments are also moving at snail's pace due to lockdowns.
To sum up, the Govt is unable to unlock the value for its assets!!
