This week's ", invites your comments on why middle class should be very wary of AAP 's subsidies . The feature will be reproduced on the edit page of the Saturday edition of the newspaper with a pick of readers' best comments.So be poked and fire in your comments to us right away. Comments reproduced in the paper will be the ones that support or oppose the views expressed here intelligently. Feel free to add reference links etc., in support of your comments.The more things change in India's stifling political landscape, the more they seem to remain the same. Take, for instance, the anti-corruption Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Delhi headed by Arvind Kejriwal , which has been both game changing and path breaking indeed in myriad ways. It is refreshing that the funding for the newbie AAP has been open and transparent; it has no doubt led to a surge of middle class electoral support that has miraculously catapulted the AAP leadership to power.Yet the AAP government in Delhi has been quick off the block to indulge in populism and sheer giveaways, simply to curry favour with the electorate. The politics of subsidies and sops would plain misallocate scarce budgetary resources meant for social and infrastructural heads, and lead to a host of wholly unintended negative consequences. The concerned middle class clearly needs to be wary of the warped economics and questionable policies of AAP. Note that its water policy seeks to further subsidise those with piped metered connections, or hardly half the households, never mind that the figures suggest that a horrendous 50% of Delhi's daily supply is lost in leaky distribution The move would surely shore up water wastage and attendant shortages and pour more subsidies on the non-poor. And it is fiscally retrograde to thus boost consumption subsidies. Note also that the plan for nil water charges for up to 667 liters per day and a sharp increase in the rates thereafter would be perverse incentive both for meter tampering and for heightened claims of leakage in the piping network.Instead of such muddled populism, what is required is a much improved distribution and piped network that reaches all and sundry, complete with regulated user charges linked to usage. There is certainly a case for ‘lifeline' water supply with the subventions transparently funded, but the idea of pouring subsidies on the non-poor households with piped supply is thoroughly sub-optimal, especially when a large plurality of Delhi's residents lack ready access and there is massive wastage in the form of mounting network loss.Or, consider the Kejriwal government's power policy and its decision to slash–halve–tariffs via executive order, wholly disregarding due process and independent tariff setting. The move to drastically reduce power tariffs for those consuming up to 400 units a month, who happen to form a large majority, would probably make the rates the cheapest nationally and also among the most subsidized. Notice that the very principle of reasonable user charges is sought to be routinely compromised even in relatively high-income Delhi.The decision to rev up the subsidy on power is more likely to discourage much-needed investment, including in last-mile distribution. True, there has been considerable reduction in the technical and commercial losses in Delhi's reforming power sector. However, the line losses remain significant and do point at the need for stepped up investment in electricity distribution and metering systems to stem revenue leakage and clamp down on theft.The systemic overhaul would verily bring down the relative price of power. Which is why the move to ramp up power subsidies seems both reckless and myopic, lacking vision. Besides, the Electricity Act, 2003 expressly requires all stakeholders to eschew needless politicisation of power rates and related statism. Rather, it calls for independent tariff setting, the rationalization of cross-subsidies across the different consumer categories and power rates that are competitively determined. And the bid to reduce tariffs by fiat does set a rather bad precedent.The AAP government's economic policies seem anachronistic and quite dated in a large reforming economy, with huge potential to shore up markets , enterprise and growth. They may have made sense in the days of pre-reforms, grim autarky and sanctimonious socialism when the Indian economy performed way below its potential for decades, but can scarcely do so in the here and now. The notion of stepping-up consumption subsidies and giveaways and resorting to rank populism is inimical to growth and overall economic wellbeing as it would merely deny funds for social welfare and put various other investments on the back-burner.Perhaps the AAP government would make amends and steer clear of obtuse policies going forward. But till that change is apparent for real, the middle class voting public needs to circumspect and reconsider its support for AAP. The plain reality is that hiking subsidies, sops and giveaways basically means frittering away funds and resources that have a way of disproportionately stultifying growth.Delhi's increasingly politically attentive middle class certainly deserves social and physical infrastructural investments befitting the world's great cities, and not suffer from failed socialistic policies of old that ramp up consumption subsidies, politicise their funding and stultify incentives right across the board. It seems ironic that the politically entrepreneurial and go-getting AAP vouches for fuddy-duddy policies long past their sell-by date.