For nearly 50 years after independence two government companies had complete monopoly on telephone services throughout India. Delhi and Mumbai had MTNL while the rest of India was in the hands of BSNL. Their service was lousy, staff were rude and rates extortionate. A call between Delhi and Chandigarh would be considered a trunk call and charged at Rs. 100/minute but now costs less than one rupee/minute. These two companies were given 3G spectrum a year back to give them a head start over the private sector but have failed to generate customers. Now BSNL is on course to report a loss of Rs. 60 billion this fiscal and the government is unable to sell off 30% of its shares. Meanwhile another erstwhile government mess Air India is demanding Rs. 20 billion just to pay interest on its loans of Rs. 400 billion. It has the highest staffing ratio of all airlines in the world, huge salaries and very high levels of dishonesty. Criminal politicians and thieving civil servants are allowed to travel free in first class with any number of relatives, servants and friends. Air India maintains 5 luxury planes in perpetual readiness for so called VVIPs costing Rs. 8 billion a year. Not even the most advanced economies can boast of such criminal waste in tax payer money. There is no hope of rescuing Air India unless the government reduces staff numbers to international norms, reduces extortionate taxes on air travel and taxes on air fuel to encourage more people to fly. Problem is that private airlines, being more efficient, will benefit most and Indian Railways will go bankrupt. Only solution? Waste tax payer money on useless parasites!