'Involve people in budget-making'

Promising to bring down the power and water tariff in the coming days, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday unfolded his plan of involving “mohalla sabhas” (residents’ groups) in budget-making in five to ten constituencies.

In a discussion on Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung’s address to the House which detailed the new government’s priorities, Kejriwal said his government plans to try out innovations in budgeting and governance, including release of a white paper on power and a summer water supply plan.

“We will do a pilot project in which we will let people make the budget for their areas. The project will be tried in five-10 constituencies where ‘mohalla sabhas’ will decide what kind of development work they want,” he said.

If people want a park’s wall to be made, it will be decided in the budget. If they want streets to be improved, that will be given priority, he said, while talking on his swaraj plan which will result in keeping funds at the disposal of public for spending on their areas’ development.

Kejriwal also promised to re-launch the (011-27357169) anti-corruption helpline in an improved form.

“We want to empower people and we will do it more systematically,” he said, claiming that corruption had come down by almost half in the first 10 days of his government work.

The Chief Minister said the government would also come out with a white paper on the power sector scenario where privatisation of the electricity distribution took place. “We will tell people about the present situation and what we want to achieve in the next five years.”

Kejriwal also dropped strong hints about the city’s tight financial position.
 “We left the city in a positive (financial condition) after 49 days in the government but under the President’s Rule, there has been an under-recovery of Rs 4,350 crore (revenue),” he said. “We need money and may have to cut down expenses,” said Kejriwal.

He promised to end the raids on traders and claimed: “We will collect record amount of tax without raids. The Finance Minister has directed that raids will be conducted only in cases where there are specific inputs on tax evasion, routine 40-60 raids in a week will be discontinued,” he said.

“We will embrace the traders and they will whole-heartedly contribute to the revenue by paying tax. This way, we will collect not just Rs 30,000 crore but Rs 60,000 crore revenue in an year,” he said.

At this point, BJP leader in the House Vijender Gupta raised a point of order and asked Speaker Ram Niwas Goel to ask the Chief Minister to answer if he had set a tax collection target for the Delhi government officials.

Goel had earlier expunged Gupta’s remark on the tax collection target issue.
The BJP leader also raised an alarm while Kejriwal was talking about his government’s summer water plan.

As Kejriwal asked all legislators, especially the three BJP legislators, to give a report on colony-wise water problems observed in their constituencies, Gupta said: “It is too late to make such a plan. This should have been done much earlier as summer is round the corner.”

The Chief Minister also talked about encouraging “honesty and efficiency” and overcome systemic irritants in achieving the AAP’s poll promises.

“As an experiment, officials will be asked to come up with plans to achieve the targets of individual departments. The official who gives the best suggestion will be made the head of the department and given full freedom to work, with limited monitoring of the cabinet,” he said.