Chholegate reporting has focused on the number of cars, fancy car numbers and in-fighting within the Delhi Congress. But there are policy issues. Corruption has many dimensions, big-ticket corruption being typically linked to electoral reform and political funding. But other dimensions of corruption concern artificial shortages and discretionary abuse. For instance, if VIP licence plates are auctioned (instead of knee-jerk blanket bans), there will be transparency, apart from government acquiring revenue. Corruption diverts public revenue into private channels. Reforms, where implemented (import duties, domestic indirect tax, property tax, income tax), have standardised rules, reducing opportunity for abuse. Corruption linked to licensing shortages (telephone and gas connections, railway tickets) has also declined. But there are two areas where discretionary abuse is still pervasive and little has been done to reform them — agricultural distribution chains and land markets. In both, dis-intermediation has net welfare benefits, but the political economy of resistance is linked to lubricating the political system. No Delhi government will survive if wholesale markets in Delhi are disintermediated, even though that is better for both producers and consumers, as flower and fruit marketing have demonstrated. Land, particularly urban land, offers an even more lucrative domain.

Had that not been the case, ULCRA of 1976 would never have been passed. In retrospect, ULCRA financed many election campaigns. Messing up urban land (and real estate) markets also brings in building regulations and tenancy laws. But the core is availability of urban land and its use: DDA offering 25 per cent of available land on the market, thus creating artificial shortages. In Chholegate, plots were meant for resettlement of slum-dwellers. There are indeed problems with identifying slum-dwellers who deserve titles: 40 per cent of Delhi’s population lives in slums, but not all slums are authorised and legal problems consequently arise.

... contd.