Axing one's own foot

I was trying to analyze Delhi's budget released by AAP. A couple of years back, i had lot of expectations from the anti-corruption movement leading to the AAP party. I still believe that they have good intentions but what makes me wonder is why are they axing their own foot? Why make lofty statements and unrealistic statements?

First i browsed through various news papers to get a clue on the budget. Unfortunately, the numbers were different in various news papers (no one cared to double check the numbers before publishing).

So, I checked the official government website. I found two documents.
http://delhi.gov.in/wps/wcm/connect...9844&CACHEID=8bce950048dee907827dfb7a2b587979

http://delhi.gov.in/wps/wcm/connect...6380&CACHEID=91948e0048dee8a78276fb7a2b587979

One was the budget and one was the highlights. Interestingly, the highlights had more details than the budget. Shouldn't it be other way around?

So some of my analysis from the budget.

1. The expected revenue is projected to be 10% to 30% increase from last year. I couldn't get the exact number of last year and different news paper had different numbers. Now, when the national GDP is expected to rise 7% to 8%, how can Delhi revenue rise 10+%? Are people going to be suddenly honest in paying taxes? Are new industries going to move to Delhi? Is the unemployment rate suddenly going to drop? There is no rational provided as to why there would be an increase.
2. It is expected to recruit 20000 regular teachers by end of the year to improve student-teacher ratio. This means that around 200+ teachers needs to be hired every day (including weekends and holidays)!!. Hiring takes months (technical tests, aptitude tests, interviews, background checks (no fake degrees), reference checks). How is it possible to hire 200+ teachers a day? I know "Humare Arvind" can spot honest people from the crowd but even for him to select 200 teachers from thousands on a daily basis is too much. That would also give a free hand to LG.
3. All Buses, classrooms, hostels will have CCTV cameras. No mention of how this will be funded. Railways recently installed 118 cameras at Dadar in mumbai at a cost of 21 crores. So installing thousands of cameras would take up nearly the whole budget.
4. Govt is planning to setup 500 "Mohalla clinics" in all parts of Delhi in the current financial year. I don't understand what it means. Since all surgeries, diagnosis and medicines are on youtube and google, does it mean in each area a person would be assigned to learn heart surgery or a knee surgery through youtube and operate? where will so many doctors, nurses, wardboys will come from? what about constructions of the clinics? All these within a year?
5. Students will be given loan of upto 10 lakhs without collateral. No allocation of funds. how many students will qualify? what is their motivation to pay if there is no collateral? what if they leave india and work in foreign countries?
6. Swaraj fund is created for local development. The paymenttowards the developmental works will be made to the contractor uponcompletion, only after citizens of the area give consent regarding satisfactory quality of the work. Now, what does citizens giving consent mean - Majority, 100% what? Which contractor would be ready to take up such projects? Why don't we start with MLAs? MLAs not getting paid until citizens give their consent of satisfactory work. If it works for MLAs, we can extend it to others.

The rest of the laundry list gets further ridiculous with no numbers on the funds or any achievable target.

It is really despicable that no one in the media is challenging the budget or asking the government on how it plans to achieve this. Why would a party make such promises that are difficult to keep at least when the focus is on them.

Even in corporate world, when i have to give a budget, i have to identify the projects, i need to have a schedule, the cost, the resources needed etc before the line item is put into the budget. Any overrun in resources or timeline or cost gets noticed and appears in the next review cycle.

 

Thanks Jaya Mam. The central government atleast has the luxury of printing notes as long as the credit ratings are reasonable. At some point, it may happen like Greece. The last few years, the govt has been selling PSUs and natural resources to increase revenue. At some point, those will deplete as well. Unless the country is able to produce more and export more, real growth is strangnented.

what baffles me is after 6 months of effort from a whole army of people and we get 12 pages which doesnt even add up, leave alone the logistics of implementation and no one questions it. i have seen news hailing this as the best budget ever.

 

Kamalji, maybe you are lucky like others that you dont read all this and try to find logic in it. Unfortunately, i not only read them but try to understand them, making my mind spin. I should learn to not spend my tiny brain on such things. Just follow hota hai chalta hai.

 

185 views only 2 comments? Maybe i am totally wrong on my assessment.