KGF closure

Sir, - KGF is being closed and thousands of workers being discharged even though it still produces gold, because it is uneconomical. One wonders at the logic of economists who remain silent at the growing government expenditure that is certainly not economical. The Disinvestment Board is recommending privatisation of even those PSUs that are showing good profit. Those that are showing loss are doing so mainly because of political interference in appointing the heads of the PSUs.

The Government is acquiring huge areas of agricultural land for the use of corporate interests at a time when food production is down. By this, not only does the food production decline further, but it also produces thousands of rural migrants who become dependent on the urban areas, and increase public costs in terms of poverty, disease, crime and social tensions. Is this economical, and if so, for whom?

The Government has created exim zones and put 714 items on the free import list. This list includes common salt, milk products, coffee (Kodagu coffee growers are pleading for a minimum support price), wheat flour, tea and bicycles (both of which we export). Is it economical? Is it in the interest of the nation to import Kenwood music systems, golf equipment, Pepsi and Coca Cola, Ray- Ban products, building bricks and tiles, etc., merely to cater for a minuscule section of people who can indulge in high spending, in a country of starvation deaths and illiteracy, which ranks at the bottom end of 179 nations in the human development index?

S. G. Vombatkere,

Mysore

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