Number-crunching daredevilry

The Budget session of the Delhi Assembly may have helped reinforce the image of the Arvind Kejriwal government as a dispensation that charts its own course without caring for the past.

Chief Minister Kejriwal and his deputy and Finance Minister Manish Sisodia dared to break away from the conventional budgetary rigidities of the previous city governments and also took a leap towards global practices of building human capital and fostering community participation in development.

Apart from the Budget presentation and discussion, the session also had its share of drama. The BJP was active in the House and the Congress, through protests and briefings outside the Assembly, strived to make as much political capital as possible during the session by criticising the Budget, former law minister Jitender Singh Tomar’s arrest over a fake degree and the appointment of parliamentary secretaries.

The last day of the session belonged to Kejriwal who projected that he and his government were facing interference from the Centre. The Chief Minister blamed the Narendra Modi-led central government and the BJP of indulging in “negative politics”.

“People do not like negative politics,” he said, warning the BJP of consequences in future electoral battles if it did not mend its ways.

Inside and outside the House, AAP legislators matched their rivals blow by blow by raising issues related to BJP-ruled civic agencies, Centre-controlled Delhi Police and Anti-Corruption Branch chief M K Meena.

The legislation passed by the House for giving legitimacy to the 21 parliamentary secretaries showed he political deftness of Kejriwal, an IIT engineer and former transparency activist, who now heads the administration of the most prosperous city-state in the country.

Parliamentary Secy Bill
The fate of the bill on parliamentary secretaries remains uncertain with a petition challenging the appointment of the 21 functionaries pending before court. Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung may seek legal opinion on the question of whether the Delhi government is authorised to legislate on such an issue.

By bringing the legislation in the Assembly, Kejriwal sent a strong message to party workers and detractors that he was determined to set the rules of the game.

A different budget

The Kejriwal government made a provision of Rs 1,690 crore for power subsidy in the Budget, but made an equally strong statement about making users pay charges for facilities and services. The annual 10 per cent hike in water tariff has been effected and there is no looking back. If the AAP government is striving to give world-class facilities in the capital, it is also inculcating in people a habit of paying for the provisions.

Sisodia’s Budget proposal has doubled the outlay on education, health and transport, clearly showing the AAP government’s intention to put some globally accepted principles of development economics in practice.

In terms of per capita income, Delhi is the best in the country, but for improving people’s longevity and knowledge the government has to increase its spending on health and education. And this is exactly what Kejriwal made Sisodia do. Kerala, despite a lower per capita income than Delhi, has the best HDI among all the states – UN sponsored Human Development Index. The difference between Kerala and Delhi is the social sector infrastructure in which the southern state has invested heavily since 1970s.

A higher spending on the transport sector by way of a bigger public transport bus fleet is also a comforting sign as the ultimate goal seems to be to improve the city’s toxic air by dissuading people from using private vehicles.

Tough decisions
A 100 per cent increase in entertainment tax and 50 per cent hike in luxury tax along with expansion of the VAT net during the Budget session shows a confident government’s attempt at generating additional revenue for social spending.

Both Kejriwal and Sisodia categorically denied that the proposed congestion tax on polluting trucks entering the city will add to inflation.

Sisodia is firm that polluters must pay and his statements are a strong indication of the changing times in Delhi Secretariat where ministers are willing to take on powerful lobbies like that of truckers to give clean air to people.

The fine print on promoting public-private partnership (PPP) in road construction in the city is still not clear but it is clear that the Kejriwal government is not allergic to channeling private funds into infrastructure, especially when he is looking to use most of government spending on welfare initiatives.

The balance between continuity and innovation has been a highlight of the Budget session. Free Wi-Fi in colleges and villages and other smart governance will add to the smart city dream of Kejriwal who is also thinking big on reviving the Yamuna. The proposed subsidies for electric vehicles, rationalisation of taxes and creation of the Delhi Urban Development Authority to check multiplicity of civic authorities also seem promising.

Old story
The dark side of the session was the repetitive nature of some discussions and budgetary announcements. The AAP legislators’ tendency to slam the BJP-ruled civic agencies for corruption sounded like a replay of the video tapes of the previous House sitting.

Many of the budgetary announcements on social infrastructure like anganwadis, creches, working women’s hostels and construction workers’ welfare schemes have been heard before. Same was the case of buying 1,380 buses for DTC, an issue that has been hanging fire for almost a year.

What needs to be seen by Speaker Ram Niwas Goel and Kejriwal is that debates in the House should not end up in disrespecting constitutional authorities. Be it Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung or the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission, the way AAP legislators lambasted constitutional authorities exposed their lack of adherence to democratic practices.

Another example of political naivety was the statement of an AAP legislator’s statement that a plot earmarked for a park should be given for building a dispensary as wanted by residents.

Kejriwal and his team would be wise to take away the message from this session that public participation does not mean overruling the set principles of planned development. If the Master Plan has earmarked a plot as green zone, then building a dispensary there would sound politically tempting but in the long run such decisions may harm the interest of the city.

BJP, Congress takeaway
The three BJP legislators in the House did well to make their presence felt. Two of them were even marshalled out of the House on different days. BJP legislator Jagdish Pradhan moved a private member’s bill seeking early development works in unauthorised colonies.

The Congress, which has no MLA, relied on the experience of former Speaker and Delhi unit chief Ajay Maken for making the right noises over developments in the House. Youth Congress added to the firepower of the grand old party by holding several protests outside the Assembly and near Kejriwal’s residence over Tomar’s allegedly fake degree and power tariff hike.

Maken tried to expose ‘lacunae’ in the Budget by claiming that it involved gimmickry and had repackaged some successful schemes like Bhagidari, which involved people in planning and budgeting.

The proposed hikes in VAT rates was lapped up by the BJP for linking it to possible price hike. Former chief minister Sheila Dikshit added fuel to fire outside the Assembly by claiming that the AAP government had promised it would not increase VAT, but the passage of the Delhi VAT Amendment Bill told a different story.