From what I know about Siemens in that particular project is that they are buying most of the pieces and then assembling it. As opposed to fabricating parts and putting it together.
Anyway - I have studied for a while in the west, and I've seen both systems.
AFter reading your comment, I don't think you know where precisely they are better than us. Or where privatization works or precisely how good certain government organizations are.
The engineers who get taken, the civil guys in something like ONGC, they make pretty good and help build great infrastructure.
The engineers keeping our grids alive, I've never once heard anyone call them uninformed or unaware.
I don't think this grid failure had anything to do with "giving it to Indians" that mentality died in the workplace in 1990. Our engineers who work here actually make a good grid and good systems. Heck it hasn't collapsed in a long long while.
I think the collapse has more to do with people drawing more due to subsidies and political sops than anything else. And thats not something privatization is going to fix directly.
Matter of fact, so far Govt contracts have been the more exacting contracts from what I have come across, and the private ones except for the MNCs have been the more lax.
Further - from what I can see, the government contracts for a lot of these things are open and if you are in the country, you can bid for it. (Be you Siemens or Kirloskar) And those contracts? like the BGLR Metro order? Thats vetted and checked against by govt engineers.
The way the contracts are being set up in many places, end up favoring large firms. And AFAIK MNCs aren't paying bribes.
So we already have privatization with regulations and accountability to an extent.
You could say we need more and I won't disagree. We are moving towards that.
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Unsaid when discussing "privatization" is that it's tough to work in India. Competition is harsh and margins razor thin. I know that some companies would rather sell in other places than this market for better profits with less effort.
What I want to say is that you are painting a dark picture, but having more first hand knowledge at the moment, the picture is a lot more grey, and lighting up.
If you want to see how real estate developers fare on their own, you should always remember the message of gurgaon. A beautiful example of private enterprise - a great city with well developed plots. - And no common sewage system.
Order quality is high from the govt contracts, great from firms which use contractors, Most MNCs and hit/miss from other firms.
Large govt contracts are always going to favor large firms, so that was redundant. I wanted to explain that in the govt projects, the firms that do get it tend to be MNCs or larger firms and the MNCs aren't paying bribes.
There is corruption in the country, and I don't doubt things get twisted.
I'm not portraying India as having a working system. I am saying that it's not as bleak and that reforms are tightening the noose.
For example recently service taxes were changed drastically and that's going to bite into the underground economy and bring more firms into the tax net.
it's a bit complex but in essence the govt has decided that they are going to use the larger more established firms to drive smaller firms to register. And they are now going to use the big firms to essentially collect taxes.
The problem really is corruption, bureaucracy and license raj in awarding contracts and purchasing equipments. And this is not just the major/big equipment. Electric wires used to supply power are so feeble, they snap if it rains a little heavily.
>>Plus the Engineers in BHEL and the like are pretty smart chaps, sure they may be slow but they are far from being daft. (Again! My experience, and mileage will vary)
This is precisely the thinking we need to change. 'Lets give it to our people' ideology. This needs to change. We need to accept that if somebody is better than us, then they are better than us. Besides most modern electric contracts these days are rightfully going to companies like ABB and Siemens(Eg: Bangalore Metro). And they have done an awesome job, far better than BHEL can ever do.
What we need currently is privatization with regulations and accountability.
Just look at how private real estate developer are transforming Bangalore. Government agencies like BDA(Bangalore development authority) will never and can never do that.
We need to bring that in every walk of life so that merit based competition thrives and corruption/nepotism is weeded out.