Free Water in Delhi : A Perspective

"Free" is the best word in marketting, as is said. It seems to hold true in a lot of areas, especially in Politics. With voters enticed with several freebies in every election, the key aspect in Delhi elections was the 700 liters of "FREE" water every household per day seems to be a masterstroke along with a "50% OFF" on electricity. These definitely played a significant part in deciding who will win the Delhi Elections.

From a socialistic standpoint, it is a very positive step towards providing basic amenities to citizens. I was pretty delighted to understand that it was to be rolled out pretty soon, however, my delight was shortlived with the "Conditions Apply" that came with this "Offer".

Before going into some statistics lets dwelve on some facts. Delhi Chief Minister announced a 668 liter per household under the following conditions (as reported and quoted)

"All the domestic consumers having metered connection will get 20 kilolitres of water free of cost from January 1. We will not even levy any existing charges such as water cess and sewerage charge," newly-appointed Delhi jal board CEO Vijay Kumar told reporters.
He, however, said if the consumption limit crosses 20 kilolitres, then the consumer will have to pay for the water and other charges.

The "condition applied" on the free water is rather interesting. As is reported currently it seems that anyone who uses 20KL of water will be charged zero, but anyone who uses 20,001 Liters will be charged fully for full consumption (as is being understood).

In my view the above sets up a pretty unfair distribution mechanism of a subsidized (rather free) essential commodity like water.

Analyzing a few statistics (while not all informaiton is available in public domain), I tried to understand various facets and factors on how beneficial the scheme sounds and would be

Statistic (Metered v/s Unmetered)
Firstly, a statistic that might improve with good governance and time as per the Delhi Statistical Handbook of 2013,
Metered Connections            : 1542825 (77%+)
Unmetered Connections       : 438791 (22% +)
 
While hoping that this number would improve, currently around 20% of the people who derive water from DJB might not be immediately benefitted, however AAP has full 5 years to ensure this number reduces significantly.
 
Statistic (Source of Water)
It should be also noted that only 81% of population in Delhi rely on relies water sourced from DJB via taps as per 2011 census.
The rest of the 19% rely on Tubewells/Handpumps/Wells/etc.
It is thus evident that this 19% will typically may not benefit from the freebie dolled out and impacts only 18% of the population
It is no rocket science to understand the most people that will benefit form the same is the Urban localities and the Rural areas might not fully benefit from the same
 
Statistic (Average Daily Water Consumption)
Based on the same source of Delhi Statistical Handbook 2013, Average Per Capita Requirement of a Delhite in 2013 is around 50 gallons per day, which converts to around 190L per day.
Interestingly this has not changed since quite some years.
This statistic is very important to understand what follows next
 
Statistic (Household Sizes)
Quoting from the Delhi Census 2011 following is the distribution of households in Delhi
Source:censusindia.gov.in

	Total	1	2	3	4
No. of HH	2718050	124842	208095	323869	577970
%HH distribution	100	4.59307224	7.65604018	11.91549089	21.26414157
No. of Pepople	13694245	124842	416190	971607	2311880
% distribution people		0.91	3.04	7.10	16.88
Per Person Utilization in Household Category		668.00	334.00	222.67	167.00

	6	7 to 10	11-14+	15+
No. of HH	378575	493307	49995	19490
%HH distribution	13.928184	18.149298	1.8393701	0.7170582
No. of Pepople	2271450	3946456	649935	292350
% distribution people	16.586895	28.818354	4.7460448	2.1348384
Per Person Utilization in Household Category	111.33333	83.5	51.384615	44.533333

First Row which has is the number of people every house hold, 1 representing a household with only 1 individual, 2 with a family of 2, and so on till 15+ individuals per household.
The second row, constitues the percentage that the section holds.
The third row, is a simple calcuation of total number of people in that section
A very important column is last row, which suggests the Per Person utlization a household will have to have if they need to be under the 668 Liter freebie per day

Some Observations from this statistic
1) 54% of households have 5 or more members
2) 75% of households have 4 or more members

Interpretatoin
Assuming that households continue their usage pattern, lets analyze how many households would actually end up having Rs. 0 Bills
 
As in the earlier statistic the Per capita consumption is around 190 Liters per person, if we cross reference this with the per Person Utilizaiton row in the above table (assuming every household only can use 668L of water per day), this would mean 89% people will have to reduce their water consumption to actually have free water. This would include an ideal familty of hum do hamare do.
Considering the mean family size of 5, the mean family will need to reduce their water consumption from the average by about 30%, to endup with a Rs. 0 bill in their hands
 
Only 11% people will be able to continue their "water lifestyle" and still manage to get a zero bill.
 
Lets try to further understand this 11% who are truly benefitted by this scheme. These people are recieving atleast 16% more water than average dictates and still have free water.
If they were to only still use the average of 190L water per day, this category of individuals will still be entitled for consuming 151344998L (151 Million Liters) of "extra" water "per day" that they wont be charged for.
This is a whopping surplus which is benefitting only 11% of population.

AAP has maintained that they have want to eradicate the Tanker Mafia from Delhi. It is but common sense that subsidizing an essential commodity is a major source of corruption. The Coal Gate scam was a prime example of the same. Rather providing this water for "Free" only in Delhi, it will open up more "revenue streams" for Tanker Mafia's to purchase this surplus 151Million surplus free water market. Assuming that they might not find buyers in Delhi they may simply move town and sell it else where. To extend it theory, they need not even go beyond Delhi and simply provide it to industries that are not benefitted by this subsidy at a cheaper rate.

Summary
Looking at the number of people that will truly benefit from this scheme from all the above statistics, I will leave it to you to determine whether or not this scheme was dolled out a rather too soon (in the first week itself) and some due diligence and thought should have gone into it.

There are several factors that might affect the reality, all the above data is sourced from Goverment bodies and assumed to be true.

 


 

Delhi Assembly Elections - Perspective

8 December 2013, a date when the Nation was eagerly waiting for the political scenario to unfold in some of the key constituencies, especially Delhi. From the moment Anna Hazare's andolan on the issue of corruption last year, Delhi has been the hotspot of several political and otherwise incidents, more so in negative aspects than positive.

In what resulted as a much predicted pseudo hung assembly, only the future will tell the direction ahead.From either parties shying away from forming a government, the situation looks that neither party is willing to form the government.

Kiran Bedi made an interesting comment "Coming together of BJP and AAP will be a respect of the voters' mandate. BJP and AAP should talk to each other. The voters want both BJP and AAP and Delhi needs a good government".

Having personally interested in following the situation, I wanted to share some key perspectives on which the results may be interpreted taking as base, some key aspects which had been since long in discussions. It had to also for a wide range of seemingly far fetched interpretations were hammered down by Media houses and Parties which in my opinion were not all true.

Of Voting Percentages, Candidates and Polling Stations

To start with the voter himself, Delhi saw a record turnout this election. Here is a trend in Voting Percentages sourced from the EC website for the last 4 elections

	1998	2003	2008	2013
Percentage Vote	48.99	53.42	57.61	66.5%
Total Candidates	815	817	875	810
Polling Stations	9142	8977	11155	11763

The trend clearly indicates an enthusiastic increase in the Voter turnout in 2013, attributed to some good work performed by the EC to enroll voters and voters themselves to be motivated to get enrolled and use their right to vote.

Having said that an interesting trend to be observed also is the decrease in list of total candidates that contested the Delhi elections which had shown an increase, if only marginal in all previous elections. Overlaying this statistic with the fact that AAP is a new party which fielded a lot of new faces (not all as a significant AAP candidates were previous candidates from BJP/Congress/Other parties). This brings down the number further. This shows an equally interesting trend of a significant drop candidates contesting elections. Together this statistics seems to suggest that in 2013 more people were voting for fewer candidates which may have led to less dilution of votes towards major parties. However, Delhi has been a bifurcated battle (now trifurcated) in the past and this may not have been a huge factor in the results.

In summary, the huge voter turnout does surely represent the frustration Delhi had towards is previous favorite party of past several elections, and Congress was on the receiving end of it not just for state issues but dissent of the people on national issues as well.

Of Reserved Constituencies

2013 saw an increase in the reserved constituencies (SC) compared to the last election. There were 12 reserved constituencies. An interesting trend on the analyzing the wins in these areas it throws up an interesting trend that AAP was the favorite in these constituencies. Of the 12 constituencies AAP secured wins on 9 seats while BJP securing only a single seat.

Given that BJP won significant seats overall, this trend is interesting and possibly something for BJP to think about in the future.

Of Clean Candidates, Sting Operations

Rejection of candidates with criminal cases has been pitched as a policy by several crusaders of anti-corruption, some elements of AAP are not exception to the rule. This as a factor was much emphasized by Anna Hazare's team and a lot of activists to voters in their respective constituencies.

When looking at pure statistics post the Delhi elections which includes offshoots from Anna's team forming AAP, the theory of fielding candidates with no criminal cases and them winning looks rather a farse.

Also the notion of considering candidates with criminal cases as "dirty" does not look to be true in a general context barring a few exceptions.

If you were to wonder why AAP is silent on this aspect, it may come as a surprise to some individuals who I heard suggesting AAP was better as they had no candidates with criminal cases, this information is incorrect.

Infact, AAP MLA Arvind Kejriwal himself has 5 self declared registered criminal cases (some serious as per myNeta) and appears in the top 3 "tainted" winning candidates as per the lingo. There were other 4 candidates from AAP which have self declared criminal cases. It is also interesting that most of the other candidates who have criminal cases have a subset of the same criminal cases registered against Arvind Kejriwal. If Arvind is held as a crusader, and the cases are after effects of the same, criminalizing the other candidates without a thorough background understanding of their individual selves would be outright immoral if not criminal in itself.

Additionally, although percentage of elected "dirty" candidates have reduced to 36% from 43% in the last election, this factor however does not seem to have any significant bearing. This bears to question the understanding of a various ideologies on defining a tainted candidate.

While the nation saw a lot of interesting events, the MediaSarkar sting operation on AAP was possibly the biggest twists in the political battle. How legitimate the sting was is to EC to decide in the future for a complete analysis but it does seem that it did have a bearing of a few seats possibly to AAP which quite some candidates not winning the seats including Shazia Ilmi (though with a small margin)

As a new article once said "The aam aadmi can try as he might stop being party to corrupt practices but corruption is not going anywhere. Even Kejriwal can’t promise a foolproof corruption-free system."

This should thus enlighten the nation that a candidates credibility is purely subjective to what is being presented and people should be less critical in forming quick judgements towards candidates in or outside AAP.

Another notable aspect that happened was the denial by Kumar Vishawas to contest elections, at a time when the party had already decided to constest him against Harshwardhan (BJPs CM candidate) at the very last moment, even before the Sting. AAP trusted Kumar on to form its key strategy against Harshwardhan only to be denied by Kumar. An interesting event whose actual reasons are only known to AAP which looked thoroughly depressed on the issue.

Of Vote Shares, Seat Performances and Moral wins

Several speculations and interpretations of the final tally have been made by several individuals, I only attempt to make cautious interpretation of the factual numbers and historic trends

Starting with the lowest

Congress

Congress though secured only 8 seats, a 25% vote share is still number which arguably is a saving grace for parties future. Facing a complete debacle over anti-incumbency not just from the state but also from the Center it will be interesting to see the parties future in the state and possibly in LS 2014. Given the absolute humiliation by the voters of Delhi, hope Congress takes a lesson learnt from here on.

AAP

AAP secured a 30% voteshare with 28 seats in its bucket. These numbers are remarkable for a debutant party and it has happened only a few times in politically ancient history. While the praises wont be enough for a performance as good as this one, it is noted that the party had indeed succeeded due to its role in creating an environment against the Congress/Corruption rather than any developmental credibility of running a government. It would have thus be interesting to subject AAP to a litmus test of running an efficient and corruption free govt in the heart of the nation. Argument are rife that suggest BJPs best strategy at this stage would be to let AAP form the government either by re-election or other means to see how efficiently they deliver to contents of 70 different manifestos in a timeline of 5 years, in addition Infrastructure and Commerce development in the state.

AAP correspondingly should grasp the opportunity and prove their metal in governance.

BJP+

BJP+ clearly emerged as the most popular party both by vote share and by seats. Not only did it secure 32 seats, but maintained a 33% voteshare. While during initial attempts by AAP to criticize BJP to have lost the moral right to lead when AAP was ahead in the voteshare during counting, the same faces were nowhere to be found making those claims after the result.

It is also interesting to note that historically for the last 4 elections, AAPs seat tally has only increased, with a significant increase in this election as well. This clearly indicates to an extent that Delhi may have rejected Congress completely, it possibly does not hold BJP responsible for the same. For a party which has a long political history in the nation, such a sentiment cannot be driven by short term campaigns, criticism and policies but definitely the party is doing a few things right. In response to several negative interpretations made by Media and other parties, the results suggest BJP+ should be given a little more credit than what is being presented to the nation currently.

Hereon, if BJP allows AAP to create a govt. the Delhi voters may well go in a single direction with either BJP or AAP based on their performance, but the situation for now clearly suggests the state as a whole has "not" made up its mind

It is interesting that while AAP fielded 70 candidates, BJP field 67 candidates. In light of the deficit of these 3 seats, BJP did look more efficient, but should have well planned to field all candidates, but for reasons only known to BJP.

In summary, while there is much to rejoice and an excellent start to AAP, BJP still seems to have a strong hold on its loyal segments of Delhi while making slow progress in each election. It will be interesting to see if AAP now targets BJP with its Corruption policing to garner majority or forms the govt, if the situation emerges and delivers the promise of alternate leadership.

It looks like a page from what is going to be interesting Book on Delhi's Political situation, what happens ahead is a much anticipated mystery...