This essay attempts to provide a post-privatization framework that would reconcile market-based supply and competition with fair and equitable outcomes traditionally associated with the public provision of water, electricity, roads, telecommunications, etc. Specifically, it explores the use of regulation as an effective instrument of taxation to secure publicly mandated, fair, and equitable access to such facilities across the relevant population. It argues that pricing and supply decisions for various utilities—whether under private or public ownership—are de facto fiscal in nature. Regulation of these utilities ought, therefore, to be guided by conventional standards of fiscal fairness as is normally done for taxes and subsidies. Existing and evolving regulatory practices in both developed and developing countries are shown in fact to be motivated by such public good—as opposed to market efficiency—considerations.