The pity is that it needn’t be this way. Why can’t the power elite pay for the privileges they enjoy Why is it so difficult to convince the 4,000-odd large private property owners — each with a minimum net wealth of at least Rs 100 crore — to pay for retrofitting their beautiful municipality Isn’t that what participative governance means Why must poor Trilokpuri in east Delhi comprising the marginalised, poor and the shabbiest of public services pay for keeping Lutyens’ Delhi shining Had Thomas Piketty been part of the Smart City selection committee he would have torn out his hair in a fit of Gaelic rage at the callousness with which public money has been wasted and inequality worsened.

Political pork, lazy bureaucrats, the use of public funds for private gain by the elites is all old hat in India and across the developing world. The Central government China Parallel Screw Barrel Suppliers owns nearly 90 per cent of the 44 sq km it comprises with marginal ownership in and around the prestigious Lutyens’ zone of power brokers, lobbyists, old-economy business people, big time realtors and other hangers-on of this rarified ecosystem — the Indian equivalent of the Washington DC Beltway. The budget is, or should be, about spending public money well and wringing out the maximum public value from it.

A small self-absorbed bubble of power, privilege and wealth.Why is the selection of NDMC for yet another barrel of “pork” so disappointing Three reasons strike out:First, that this should happen days before the “reformist” budget expected to be presented by the Union minister of finance for 2016-17 is unnerving.Prime Minister Narendra Modi of all people, should know the negative feeling generated from being excluded by the establishment. It spends over Rs 3,000 crore every year on serving just 300,000 people — a per capita expense of Rs 1 lakh per resident, per year. What indeed was the selection process which has generated such a warped result The allocation instrument is a “challenge fund” devised by the usual suspects: Fly in, fly out consultants.