NEW DELHI: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal conferred The Week's Woman of the Year Award to social activist Rukmini Rao at a function here today.
“The AAP Government has recovered the money given as for the subsidies for water and electricity, the traders and business men trust the government implicitly and they have paid the taxes," the chief minister said at the award function.
Kejriwal said that in three months his government has recorded a 38 per cent increase in revenue.
"This increase was unheard of in Delhi government. This is without any raids, without any scrutiny because we trust our traders and businessmen. People believe that the tax we collect will spent on development. There will be no corruption. So they pay."
Congratulating Rao for her achievements, Mr. Kejriwal invited her to Delhi to give her suggestions. "I assure you we will implement them," he said. "I am one of you. A few years ago I used to work in slums too. I remember we used go to government with our demands. But they never listened. Now that we have come to the other side to politics, we still have friends in NGOs. Non government organizations work in the field and know the pulse of the people. They know what the problems are. So if we sit together we can find solutions."
Kejriwal congratulated THE WEEK, for honouring unsung heroes like Rukmini Rao every year as Person of the Year.
This year's awardee, Rukmini Rao has worked for over four decades in the field of women education and empowerment. Dr. Rao started her career in Delhi and has moved to Andhra Pradesh where she works with providing education to girls of the Lambada community.
Listing his government's achievements he said that the power outages this summer have been the lowest in the past three years. "For the first time we have fixed the accountability with private power companies.
The power companies have to tell us where there will be a power cut in which area in the next 15 days. If there is an unscheduled power cut longer than an hour, the company has to compensate Rs. 50 per consumer per hour. After two hours the amount goes up to Rs. 100 per hour per consumer."
Receiving THE WEEK Woman of the Year Award, Rao said she started her career working to fight to get an FIR registered if a woman had been slapped. "The cop would say, doesn't your husband give you food? So what if he slapped you? Things have changed a lot. Women are at the forefront of change. But governments are slow to keep up."
Rukmini Rao has been working for the last 30 years among the tribal Lambada community, working for empowering their women and fighting against social evils like female foeticide.
Renowned artist and art curator, Alka Raghuvanshi, felicitated the awardee. She said that the honour for Rukmini Rao was an honour for all women and would inspire all women to be fighters for their rights.
Welcoming the guests, The Week’s Managing Editor Philip Mathew said that the magazine has always stood for fairness without breathing fire. "The selection of the woman or man of the year was a very through process. It was done by journalists," he said. The guest of honour was renowned artist Alka Raghuvanshi.