Indians are cheated daily.

The National Highway Authority of India has complained that it has been cheated out of Rs 240 million by, DGSCL, the company collecting toll at the Gurgaon Expressway. Apparently the DGSCL has reported an average of 181,000 cars out of 255,000 cars passing through the tollgates everyday over a 10 month period and pocketed the difference. The Telecom Regulatory Authority has triumphantly announced that within 6 months people will be able to retain their present phone numbers even when they go to a different part of India. This has been grandly named Mobile Number Portability. The whole thing is an absolute con trick. We can use our phones anywhere in India even now and pay roaming charges. Portability only means that your number will stay the same if you decide to change your operator. However, the country has been divided into different " circles " and if you go out of your present circle you still have to pay roaming charges. Your present operator will refuse to charge you at local rates even if this place is likely to be your residence for a long time. Since companies in India operate as a cartel to cheat customers why would you bother to change operators? Why are citizens routinely cheated by businesses? Because the government is the biggest cheat. The government has blamed the recent rise in the price of onions on hoarding and threatened severe punishment. Yet the government is gouging billions of rupees from us by hoarding common services. It is called " tatkal ". If you apply for a passport you may have to wait for months but if you are willing to pay an extra Rs 1500 for tatkal you will receive your passport in one week. The same applies to train tickets. Air fares are too expensive because of outrageous taxes so most people are forced to travel by trains. Because of the demand you have to reserve your seat 2 months in advance but the Railways creates an artificial scarcity by not declaring a large number of seats. These are sold at high prices 24 hours before departure. You have to pay the full fare from one terminal to another even if you are travelling only half the distance and you get not one paisa in refund in case you have to cancel. Only Indians pay extortionate taxes to be cheated and looted by their government. Aren't we lucky?