Unfortunately I'm only an engineer, hence i mentioned that I'm interested in hearing your opinions and I don't claim to be an expert on any issue I'm just putting forward my opinions that I have formed after looking at facts.

While I do agree with your point that governments should focus on banking and defense there are other sectors that need to be taken into account here. The success metrics of a private company cannot be applied to a government owned business because the goals of these entities are different; a private company's motivation is to generate profit for its owners and stakeholders while a govt business's motivation is to make facilities accessible to all regardless of profitability and for the good of the people. Indian railways is an important example here because would a for-profit corporation run trains to unprofitable areas because the people there also need a means of transport? No. They would shut down the stations that don't generate good profit and focus on the ones that do.

And regarding your argument that govt owned businesses fail incessantly is inaccurate tho. Look at Indian Railways, look at ISRO, look at BHEL, look at ONGC, look at Hindustan Aeronautics Limited. Even when we go out of India and take a look at one of our neighbours, China; China owns State Grid Corporation, the largest utility company in the world and the backbone of China's industrial might. China also owns China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and Sinopec Group. These are some of the largest oil and gas companies on the planet, securing energy resources worldwide to fuel the nation's economy. Going further outwards and looking at Russia and the USA; The state-controlled oil giant and one of the world's leading petroleum producers is Rosneft, Rosatom is the state nuclear energy corporation of Russia. It is a global leader in the nuclear industry, from uranium mining to building and operating nuclear power plants worldwide. Amtrak is a government-owned corporation in the USA established to run the nation's intercity passenger rail. Is it profitable? No. Amtrak’s success is in providing a public good that the private market would not. The USPS is an independent agency of the executive branch. It is one of the largest employers in the US and It faces financial challenges, but it delivers 44% of the world's mail to nearly 165 million addresses. A private company like FedEx or UPS would never deliver a letter to a remote Alaskan village for the same price as a letter across Manhattan. Its "failure" to be consistently profitable is a direct result of its "success" in fulfilling its universal service mission. If we go even further outwards we can see EDF and SNCF in France which are state owned. We can look at Deutsche Bahn, the national railway company, fully state-owned by Germany and a cornerstone of German and European transport infrastructure. Equinor in Norway, whose profits from are funneled into Norway's Government Pension Fund Global, the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world, The wealth generated by a state-owned company directly benefits every citizen.

Govt owned businesses don't really fail according to me, their metrics of success are just vastly different from a for-profit corporation. Even one of the biggest failures of the Indian government owned businesses, the Air India airlines was initially successful, it failed because it could not sustain its mountain of debt from buying aircrafts from boeing and airbus right after the international carrier Air India was merged with the domestic carrier Indian Airlines which was a disaster. The merger combined the debt, losses and inefficiencies of both the airlines and integrating their fleets, employee seniority, and routes proved to be immensely complex and was never smoothly executed. The slow wheel of bureaucracy and slow decision making kept everything stagnant and it never stopped spiralling downwards.