Electricity.

There's been something going on in this part of the universe that many of you might have missed. After all, it's local news.

What happened some weeks ago is that the local electricity companies in Delhi got the rates hiked by 10 percent. Which is something that seems to happen all the time, all over the place, in all industries. What is different is that this time the locals decided not to accept it. There was a big "grassroots" level movement and many RWAs (that's residents welfare associations) protested and decided to deduct 10% from their monthly bills before paying them.

Seeing the issue snowballing, the powers-that-be decided to roll the hike back. And they did this how? By issuing a subsidy to the power companies! So the taxpayer gets to pay for the electricity hike that the electricity user doesn't have to pay for.

I always thought that privatization was a good thing. That it would make companies more accountable to their customers and that they couldn't depend on the government to bail them out of problems caused due to their sheer lack of motivation. That's because I mistakenly assumed privatization = dismantling of monopoly. Clearly this is not the case. Competetion is good (for the consumer), regardless of who actually owns the company, as long as the same rules apply to all players.

When you are the only company that people can pay to provide them with electricity, why would you care that a big chunk of what you produce is lost to "transmission losses"?

Now, if only someone would look at the cable TV monopoly...