Can we get Mr. Mehta to join IPI?

["Dr. Subroto Roy" <sroy@vgsom.iitkgp.ernet.in>]

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Please help make the Manifesto better, or accept it, and propagate it!
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. Mehta's point is very plausible.  It is consistent with the
hypothesis
of bureaucratic rent-seeking in public choice theory -- i.e. that
Government
officials may be less interested in the public good than in the
enhancement
of their own power.

I applied it for India in Pricing, planning and politics: a study of
economic distortions in India (London 1984).

Subroto Roy.
-----Original Message-----
From: vamsi@siliconcorp.com <vamsi@siliconcorp.com>
To: debate@indiapolicy.org <debate@indiapolicy.org>
Date: Tuesday, September 21, 1999 11:56 AM
Subject: DOT's silliness knows no bounds - Mr. Arun


>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>Please help make the Manifesto better, or accept it, and propagate it!
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>    I have copied the following article posted by Mr. Arun Mehta on
>India-GII.  DoT is Department of Telecom.
>_____________
>A Business Standard front page headline "Rs. 15 lakh fee by DoT stalls
>Net
>trading" on September 20, 1999, tells about how the DoT wants each
stock
>
>broker who wishes to start offering on-line trading services to pay
them
>Rs.
>1.5 million (approx. US$ 36,000) a year merely for interconnecting the
>terminal that is connected to the Net with the one the broker uses for
>trading!
>
>Why does the country put up with such silliness? All this time, India's

>Internet backbone has been in the US, because the DoT made it so hard
>and
>expensive for ISPs to interconnect in India. The DoT has this absurd
>attitude that anything you wish to do in telecom, they must extract
>their
>pound of flesh -- they consider telecom to be their exclusive preserve
>in
>the country, and anyone "encroaching" on their turf has to pay.
>
>I thought the TRAI set prices in the country. How can the DoT then do
>these
>things arbitrarily?
>
>Another way out would be for the stock exchanges to convert their
>network
>into a Virtual Private Network on the Internet, so that they aren't
>using
>two separate networks.
>
>Arun Mehta, B-69, Lajpat Nagar-I, New Delhi-110024. Phone 6841172,
>6849103
>http://www.cerfnet.com/~amehta




--------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is the National Debate on System Reform.       debate@indiapolicy.org
Rules, Procedures, Archives:            ../debate/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------