Government subsidies are often dubbed as inefficient for an economy. While some subsidies may indeed do more harm than good, to argue that all of them are populist, and hence inefficient, is wrong. Recent announcements by the Delhi Government on free metro and bus rides for women and free electricity up to 200 units need to be assessed in the light of this.
However, Delhi is dealing not just with inequality of access to resources, but also with slow death by breath.
A thumb rule for any public policy in Delhi, given the current levels of pollution, should be that the policy at least has a neutral effect on emissions. This means that if it can’t reduce emissions, it should at least not increase them.
