#sagarwatchnews #monopoly #jio #google #indigo
Sachin Jyotishi/ Column Writer
Welcome to the grand circus of Indian consumer life — where your day begins with an IndiGo flight delay, continues with Jio’s network vanishing during an important call, and ends with Google Pay announcing “Payment Processing… Payment Failed… Try Again?” But don’t worry — you don’t choose these companies. These companies choose you, because frankly… where else will you go?
India today is proudly home to a handful of mega-companies that have mastered the ancient art of “Because we can.” Whether it’s flying, paying, calling, or booking train tickets, we have essentially outsourced our national existence to a few superheroes — or supervillains, depending on your last customer care experience.
Take IndiGo, for example, with a sky-scraping 70% market share. If they ever decide to give free water only to passengers who can solve calculus problems mid-air… we will simply nod and accept. Why? Because the only other flight option probably doesn’t exist on your route.
Then we have Jio, with its 41-42% market share in network coverage. Remember the time your phone stopped working and the entire neighbourhood panicked?
That’s not a network outage — that’s a modern-day public health crisis. Airtel proudly holds 33-34%, acting like the dignified elder brother who charges premium money but also drops calls with a sophisticated accent.
Meanwhile, in the digital realm, UPI apps are engaging in a friendly cold war.
PhonePe has 47%, Google Pay has 35%, and Paytm… remember Paytm? It still sends notifications like that ex who refuses to accept the breakup.
And of course, the crown jewel — IRCTC, with a modest 100% monopoly. Even North Korea would blush at those numbers. Here, the thrill is not in reaching your destination… the thrill is simply in logging in without the system crashing. Booking a Tatkal ticket is basically India’s unofficial national lottery — if you succeed, please inform the Prime Minister’s Office.
But imagine — just imagine — *if any one of these giants wakes up one fine morning and decides to “innovate.”
Not in a good way. Oh no.
In the classic Indian monopoly way.
- IndiGo introduces “Standing Seats 2.0 — For Those Who Don’t Want Comfort Slowing Them Down.”
- Jio launches a plan with unlimited data… that works only between 2:00 AM and 2:07 AM.
- Google Pay starts charging ₹1 as a “Congratulations Fee” every time a payment succeeds.
- IRCTC adds a captcha where you must identify whether a goat is angry or confused.
Who will stop them? The consumer?
The consumer who apologises to customer care?
The consumer who still says “Thank you” after waiting 88 minutes on hold?
In this age of megacorporations, the Indian public has learned an important life lesson:
Competition is a myth, but hope is free.
So, until the day real disruption happens — not by the companies, but against them — we will continue booking tickets, making payments, taking flights, and complaining loudly on Twitter… only to repeat the cycle tomorrow.
After all, we live in a country where choices are many — but somehow, exactly the same.
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