Conclusions
After a reading of the evidence set out above, it is
obvious that all attempts at an examination of the merits and repercussions of
the project have been scuttled. There has been an explicit understanding that
puts this project outside the purview of the laws of the nation, statute and
fiscal propriety and admittedly gives illegal primacy to contractual
obligations over the law of the land. The “privately” negotiated project at
“very, very high” capital cost (per CEA), has been passed in breach of statute
and statutory notifications, on false, fraudulent and incomplete information
(as admitted by the GOI, GOM and CEA). The project has been approved without
subjecting this project to scrutiny required by statute, in fact, by
deliberately undermining the statute. The law has been deliberately changed at
the specific request of Enron Inc. For example a 5-word addition to the statute
specifically changes the Return on equity (ROE) from 16% to 31.05%. This
involves additional payments to Enron alone, to the tune of over U$ 3.5 billion
over and above the ‘guaranteed’ ROE of about U$ 4 billion. The project is so
grossly dishonest that there has been express discussion between the parties
seeking to put this project outside the purview of public and judicial
scrutiny. All attempts at an examination of the merits and repercussions of the
project have been scuttled to the extent of fraudulently and perjuriously
misleading Courts.
Even
after this and other experiences, for example in the petroleum, telecom,
railways and a host of other sectors, privatisation is still the current
‘mantra’ being chanted as the panacea for the ailments of the republic and
elsewhere. It is critical to appreciate that a large part of the opposition is
not to policy of “privatisation” per se in as much as the manner in which the
exercise has been carried out. The problem is not ideological inasmuch as what
transpires under the cloak of ideology
The
manner in which this and such other projects came through, in complete and
admitted subversion of statute and law without any application of mind at all
is one of the prime concerns. Even the judiciary has not been immune, in spite
of repeated challenges there has been no
judicial examination of the contract per se or the gross breach of law and
statute at all.
The
failure of the system can only be partially explained by the sheer quantum of
money involved. It is not explicable by invoking any particular aspects of
ideology. However what is inexplicable is, the elite in India which has been
hitherto reasonably protective of its long term interests, seems to have given
no thought to the long term; the economic and political consequences and the
popular backlash.
The list of institutions that were subverted and/or ignored and/or bypassed and/or choose to be subverted is the most astonishing part of this episode. In the circumstances, the particular concern is that of the near total abdication of even a semblance of governance and the repeated failure of all constitutional, institutional, and statutory safeguards.