Is your electricity supply regular? Is your drinking water free of
germs? Do your telephones work smoothly?
These questions would evoke a unanimous No from most of us. It is
now a widely held belief that most of our
public services are marked by corruption and callousness. Now a
recent study of three major metropolises,
Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Pune, explodes the myth that they are
cheap. While official fees and user charges
for services are indeed low, the costs of corruption and the
investments made by citizens to cope with the
unreliability of services are significant. The study suggests
breaking the monopoly of the government over these
services and introducing creative alternatives to instill
competition in the concerned sectors.
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