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Dissecting AAP manifesto 2014

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Governance

All said and done, AAP has catalysed change country-wide, and it very much deserves to be in the picture, even after the elections, perhaps in place of Congress and as a an alternative to BJP. This is particulaly so as far as Karnataka is concerned, where neither Congress nor BJP has much of a credible standing. And, that's why AAP interests me.

Their manifest 2014 (in pdf form) is accessible here, and the website may be accessed here. I will now open up debates here on subjects that specifically interest me, in the order of my interest in them.

Promoting honest business, unleashing India's entrepreneurial energy (sl no 12 -2):


It states "AAP believes that government should not be in the business of running businesses. Active participation of private sector is required for enterprises to thrive and create jobs. The government should encourage honest enterprise through lower compliance costs and a corruption-free environment, the provision of efficient and reliable infrastructure and services, and incentivising productive innovation".

Now, not even Arvind Kejriwal has contested the fact that privatisation of power supply in Delhi has caused to reduce the distribution losses from around 55% to around 15% now (particularly in the areas covered by Tata PDDL), allowing for a system reliability of the order of 99.9%. For all of that, the tariff levels are comparable to what is charged by BESCOM in Bangalore (but for far poorer quality of power, meaning huge dependence on stand-by power at over double the tariff levels). And, if the CAG audit reveals a scope for lowering of tariff levels, it will be an added bonus. The direct cost savings to Delhi, one could estimate to be in the range of Rs 4500 cr pa; and, the indirect and opportunity cost savings, immeasurable.

Besides, the biggest sufferers of poor quality of delivery of infrastructure services are the aam aadmi (rather, the poor), who can't afford the alternate sources of supply, which the non-aam aadmi can.

Aren't all of these then good enough reasons to adopt the Delhi model for all cities, across the country? Detailed debate on the subject on Praja, is accessible here.

Likewise is the case for dismantling of government monopoly in the provision of public bus transport services (as brought out in detail here), which is being thwarted by various vested interests (largely of those within the government), using archaic laws, as stated by none other than Mr J P Gupta, IAS, Commissioner for Transport, Govt of Gujarat (check here).

As also is the case for outsourcing of water supply to professional agencies as is being tried in Delhi (for detailed discussions on the subject, click here)

That much for now. I'll come to the other subjects, soon.

Muralidhar Rao

Comments

xs400's picture

BJP failed in its duty as did the other opposition parties

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209 users have liked.

BJP and others are as much responsible for the current state of affairs as the ruling party is.

Even if they (AAP) dont have a majority they will do their duty as envisaged by the Constitution.

Meanwhile, they should wise up to the dirty tricks of politicians and also start their own TV channel.

They also need a crash course on politics: (which they are learning the hard way)

Confessions of a Union Buster: Marty Jay Levitt.

And so does the public.

 

 

 

 

MaheshK's picture

AK is realising

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197 users have liked.

Now AK is realising that resigning the CM post was a bad decision. Too late. Delhites may not give a second chance to AAP. BJP is already pushing Kiran Bedi's name for the CM post. Better luck in Haryana state assembly elections for AAP.

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