Free electricity: if the rich can have it why not the poor?

AAP Convenor: Arvind Kejriwal

With the polling day round the corner, the electoral battle in Delhi is intensifying by the hour. What started as an issue based campaign is fast becoming one about political mudslinging and personal attacks. However, one issue that still figures prominently in the city's political discourse is that of Free Water and Cheap Electricity as promised by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). The party has promised a 50% reduction in electricity tariffs and 700 liters of free water everyday to each household. These doles of 'free' water and electricity have faced active criticism from many city folks. Frankly speaking, until few months ago, I myself was shouting ‘Nothing should be free!’. Ideally, that is how it should be, but unfortunately crony capitalism has become so deeply entrenched in our system that unless the poor are protected by an upright administration, they will be crushed like stones in a quarry. Today the rich get subsidies in the form of tax breaks, cheap land, free electricity, free water, and a free run to pollute the environment all in the name of development but when it comes to the poor we start balking at any reference to subsidies.The anti-subsidy community often says that kerosene subsidies will make oil companies sick and that Rural Employment Guarantee is akin to paying people for doing no work. In short, it is believed and widely propagated that subsidies make people lazy and encourage a culture of entitlements.  

In counterpoint, Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz argues in his book ‘The Price of Inequality’ that politicians and big businesses tilt policies to benefit the rich by playing with public perception. For instance, no one raises questions on the cost of cleaning the environment using tax payers’ money when the industry is its largest polluter. Take the case of river Ganga, to date hundreds of crores have been spent by governments on cleaning the river polluted by untreated industrial effluents flowing into it. The tanneries on the banks of the river pollute it, but don’t pay for the pollution they cause. Is it not a form of subsidy to the industry? But sadly in public perception, industry equivalent to development and progress, therefore if you raise a voice against industrial excesses you are quickly branded as anti-development and anti-national.

I am not anti-industry nor am I anti-capitalism, all I am saying is that subsidies as they exist today, are biased against the poor. We give billions in tax breaks and sops to the industry but when it comes to the people that really need government support we are parsimonious. Current minimum wage for an unskilled worker in Delhi is around 8500 rupees per month. In this scenario, if we consider a family of four with one earning member then how can he/she be expected to meet costs of food, housing, transportation, education, health care for his entire family with this measly amount? The gap between the rich and the poor can only be bridged if governments run by corporate funded political parties divest themselves from serving the interests of the Khas Aadmi and start working for the Aam Aadmi. 

In this light if the Aam Aadmi Party spends 200 crores on subsidies that give the poor a chance at decent living, then I say Sure, Why not?