Janta Ka Budget

The Aam Aadmi Party has declared to build the state budget according to people’s wishes and demands. The party in power wants citizen’s priorities to be the framework for the upcoming budget. Three ‘mohalla sabhas’ have been held in West Vinod Nagar, Sanjay Lake and Mayur Vihar Phase II to decide the content of the budget. People’s participation in deciding the constituents of the state budget has led to involvement and interest of citizens in state based matters and the party expects it to be successful in bringing welfare to the state. The ‘Swaraj’ centric experiment would allow the ‘Aam Aadmi’ (common people) to allocate their resources effectively.

But the loop holes are many. Firstly, considering the fact that illiterate people are many and people with economics based knowledge are few, the entire budget would be socially inclined and less development centric. The budget might appear beneficial but this could deceive people and the state would have a stagnant economy like structure for a few years due to such a budget. Secondly, the state wouldn’t be able to achieve a pareto efficient point (general equilibrium) in the markets due to misguided allocation. Thirdly, since politics and economics go hand in hand, any kind of budget failure would be a criticism for AAP leading to political instability in the state. And being the capital of the country, it is highly likely to affect the economic situation of the country as a whole.

People might consider this act of AAP to be a political game. But without leading to any controversy, one must wait for the state budget. The remaining ‘mohalla sabhas’ are yet to be conducted. Most people are enthusiastic and some skeptical. The ‘Participatory Budget’ might prove to be a turning point in the history of politics in India. The budget would speak for itself in due course of time and all the questions about political and economic instability would be answered.

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