Arvind Kejriwal: Too happy to be populist

The way Arvind Kejriwal made the populist announcement of providing around 666 litres of free water to a select group of households has dashed the hopes of many
who thought this man will be able to bring about structural change in Indian polity.Kejriwals approach is no different from other run of the mill political parties and
professional full-time politicians who believe in offering freebies rather than bringing in more fundamental and structural change.Freebies may be good politics but they
are bad economics and ultimately bad economics hurt the common man. The freebies syndrome has ruined finances of several Indian states and some of them are
finding it difficult to recover even after decades. The result is lesser money for education, health, employment and all welfare schemes. Delhi, in all probability, is heading
the same way.Now let us take a look at what his announcement of free water upto 666 liters per family per day means in terms of benefits at the ground level. Kejriwals
announcement does not benefit JJ clusters as one does not find water metres in most of the houses. More than 1000 unauthorised colonies in Delhi are without any piped
water supply, so there is no question of any benefit to them. The group housing societies have a single metre and they would not be able to adhere to the maximum limit
of 20 KL.There is no clarity on this issue and so far one can safely assume that there is no free water for residents of these societies also. The residents of JJ clusters,
unauthorised colonies and group housing societies broadly comprise at least two third of the citys population!Why is Kejrwial in such a tearing hurry? Why is he making
announcements which address only superficial issues and do not bring benefit in the real sense to most of the population? In fact if you ask common domestic consumers
what they would want is not free water but clean water and regular supply of water.What an average domestic consumer woul d also want is that the water metre
installed at his or her residence should function properly and the Delhi Jal Board should respond quickly if there is any grievance of any customer. But Kejriwal is not
addressing these key issues.It is shocking to hear Kejriwal and his colleagues nonchalantly saying that they can afford to dole out crores of rupees as subsidy on this
freebie which is actually not benefitting those who require it the most. Who is going to bear the burden of this subsidy ul timately? Taxpayers like you and me. The
common average aam aadmi will bear the brunt for such knee-jerk announcements with a hike in indirect taxes mid-term as ultimately the Delhi government will have to
mop up additional money!So all of us end up paying higher prices of goods and services elsewhere for a decision which is not going to benefit most of us! It doesnt make
any sense!But as mentioned earlier, Kejriwal seems to have been sucked in by the system which he was trying to change. He is making these announcements clearly in
view of the coming Lok Sabha polls. Also, if his government falls and he has to go back to the people, he wants to go back with some achievement which he can boast of
and seek votes on its basis.But isnt it the way all political parties think? Why couldnt Kejriwal go back to people telling them that he would like to bring some structural
changes first, he would first like to give them clean water and regular water supply? Why didnt he remove the draconian clause of increasing 10% water tariff in Delhi
automatically every year? This provision was inserted by the Congress and is putting additional financial burden on common people even as DJBs quality of services are
under the scanner.Kejriwal might not realise but he and his colleagues are increasingly becoming copycats of the run of the mill politicians in India. The newly appointed
health minister reached two hours late to a press conference and then refused to address the reporters!The AAP government has already tried to restrict entry of media
persons in Delhi governments secretariat. The way media persons were treated by AAP govt on Monday, 30 December was a shocker and eye opener for many.Kejriwal,
probably, doesnt even realise that he is losing out on a brilliant opportunity to bring fundamental changes and structural transformation; this is probably due to the reason
that he is too busy playing to the gallery!