Our focus is on strengthening demand so jobs are created by default, says Manish Sisodia

The Centre also needs to do it and states also need to do it and we have demonstrated an entire approach. Worldwide, there are two approaches for generating jobs. One is strengthening the supply side, the other is handling the consumption side. We have limited scope on the supply side in Delhi. We can’t establish factories because of pollution-related reasons. This is why our focus is to control the demand side and make it so strong that jobs are created by default there… World over when there have been discussions on getting out of crises, those attempts have been successful where they strengthened the demand side.

Do you think the Centre has done enough in this direction in its recent Budget?

No. No one has done something like this. Whatever the government does is investment. Taking all government investment towards the target of job creation is something we are also doing for the first time. We have created its foundation in the last 5-6 years. Even if there wouldn’t have been the Covid effect, we would perhaps have been doing this. Because today we have done so much work in the education and health sector, working in the job sector is the step after that. We had created teams around six months ago which were tasked with studying this entire system. They conducted close to 150 meetings with different market stakeholders on different verticals — location-wise, sector-wise. It was not easy to enter and understand the cloud kitchen sector, they studied Mumbai’s food truck model and Indore’s Sarafa Bazar.

Which sector, according to your projections, has the most scope for generating employment?

There are 2-3, it can’t be either, or. Retail consumption, food and beverages need to be tapped into well… These are a club. If you go towards the service sector, there are lots of opportunities but the service sector is present in Delhi either in the form of very big services but individual level start-ups don’t have a lot of support. There is one model of IT solutions in Pune, Bengaluru and Hyderabad where you set up an IT city. Another model is decentralising it. In Delhi, the start-up model will come… for our start-up policy, we are assuming that the service sector, and especially IT, will have a lot of demand and there are lots of possibilities. We are offering Plug and Play in both cloud kitchens and the electronic city. We have spoken to people from the electronic industry before proposing the electronic city. It is a non-polluting industry, there are possibilities of both blue collar and white collar jobs, and will run on Plug and Play.

What has GST collection for this year been like?

Till March 24 in 2019-20, it was Rs 24,964 crore, in 2020-21 it was Rs 19,557 crore. Today it is 26,781 crore. So it is higher than the pre-pandemic level.

Most of the new schemes in this Budget were in the employment section, so does the government feel that it has already achieved a significant amount in health and education? Is the focus on consolidating that work instead of announcing many new schemes?

If you look at the last seven years, health and education are the foundation. Five years ago, it’s not like it was not in our mind that demand has to be increased and work has to be done in market growth. But before that, I need to work on education. Between spending on market redevelopment and schools, my priority was schools. Now since school infrastructure is more or less settled or at least on track, we have shifted to water, market development, and the economy.

With regard to the 24×7 water project, what is the target for all of Delhi to have this?

We are working a lot on the management of sewage treated water. Fresh water is being used for those purposes for which this water can’t be used. Its supply lines, ensuring that this water goes for construction work, for road washing, that is most of water management. There is some augmentation with rainwater harvesting, there is some work with that. I can’t say when it will happen but work is happening.

Could you walk us through the idea behind the boarding school for homeless children and what work has happened before the proposal?

Ultimately, we view children on the street through the lens of them breaking the law and all our actions revolve around that, around ‘correcting’ them. When we approach it that way, a mistrust between both sides is born. You need to understand child psychology as well. We are telling them, come we will teach you, we are not ‘fixing’ you. This is your home, and offer them a sense of belonging and ownership… The idea to make a school around this has been around for two years but we couldn’t do much because of Covid. But the department has done quite a bit of homework and I will conduct a review on the 31st.

Will it be difficult to get families of these children on board, especially because a large number of children on the streets are engaged in some earning activity?

If a child on the streets has their parents around, we are happy to counsel them. But our first and primary focus is to cater to those children on the streets who have no guardians. In Delhi, there aren’t many homeless ‘families’. Most children we see are isolated children.

The CM’s stance on ‘Kashmir Files’ in his budget speech created quite a stir. There are several movies the Delhi government has made tax-free in the past, so how come there is such a sharp reaction in this case?

It all started with the BJP. They have not asked for any other movie to be tax-free. They intervened in the L-G’s speech and then sir said ‘You are intervening in the L-G’s speech, why don’t you put it up on YouTube?’ Meaning the issue that you’re highlighting is important, but why are you insisting on making money out of it? You have made a 10, 20, 50 crore movie and earned Rs 200 crore but are still coming in front of the L-G and saying ‘Make it tax free’. If the BJP truly believes that the issue is important, it should ask the producer to use that Rs 200 crore on the people of Kashmir because everyone from the Prime Minister to their workers have promoted this movie. They should tell the producer that the money made from the promotions by the BJP should be used on Kashmiris and the movie should be put on YouTube so that everyone can watch it… What is the aim? To communicate the pain to every corner or to make money?

The Centre has tabled the Municipal Corporation of Delhi Amendment Bill. What does this change, according to you?

What reform is the Centre trying to bring in by reducing the number of wards in MCD from 272 to 250? The only thing that is going to happen is that elections will get delayed for at least a year.

Do you think this move is going to help BJP electorally, whenever elections happen?

How is it going to help? Unless the Aam Aadmi Party is in power in MCD, there can be no reform.