YSR govt: A welfare primer

Each party in the election campaign is now going in top gear has what is called a star campaigner. It’s a clear sign of the inadequacy of Chandrababu Naidu that he should draft the services of a whole brood of brother-in-laws and nephews to shore up the TDP’s campaign. Likewise, Chiranjeevi has a duo of brothers to help him out.

So far, Y S Rajasekhara Reddy has not utilized his party’s big cannons in the state, they being Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, and the compelling Priyanka Gandhi. Even when he does, it will be for a short burst of fire.Until then, YSR has only his work to speak for him. In the din and bustle of an election campaign, it is likely that the hard facts of the work done get lost. So here’s a primer on YSR’s work.

Growth rate

The YSR has two telling facts in its armoury as regards the growth rate of the state’s economy:

In 2003, when Chandrababu Naidu was at the height of his media-hyped ‘popularity’, the state’s GSDP (that’s gross state domestic product) was 3.3. In 2008-09, that figures spurted up to 12%. The progression during the YSR years has been dramatic: 7 per cent in 2004, 8.7 per cent in 2005, 8.9 per cent  in 2006, 10.4 per cent in 2007, and finally 12 per cent in 2008.

The global economic meltdown is sure to temper that drive this year but what’s wort noting that for the first time in decades, AP’s growth rate has been higher than India’s.What does that mean to you and me? In per capita terms, AP’s figure of Rs 33,970 is better than India’s Rs. 33,131.

Agriculture

Farmers’ suicides were front page news in Naidu’s nine years, but not any more. If there’s anything YSR can take credit for, it is that he put restored the government’s prime focus to agriculture on which 75% of the people depend, directly or indirectly. No more F1 dreams and spanking new sports academies, let’s go rural, he said. 

YSR’s government attacked farmers’ distress on several fronts:

1. 1.    The free power scheme reduced the burden of power tariffs.
2. 2.    Laws were brought in to check usurious moneylenders.
3. 3.    Bank loans were subsidised through Pavala Vaddi, literally ‘25 paise interest’ but effectively an interest rate ceiling of 3 per cent.
4. 4.    Lower costs of farm inputs such as seeds.
5. 5.    Loan waiver to the tune of Rs 12,000 crore.

Farmers of the state repaid the chief minister’s faith by producing a bounty of 196 lakh tons of foodgrain last year. That took AP to third place in the list of food-producing states, up from sixth. “I have succeeded in disproving the contention of Chandrababu Naidu that investment in agriculture was a waste,” says YSR.

Free Power

This of course is a fabled promise by YSR, one that was kept and maintained. From day one of the government, the farmers’ burden of power tariffs was eased. For someone who had endured eight tariff hikes in nine years, this was a great relief. Today free power goes out to 26,000 pumpsets in the state, seven hours a day. Tariffs have not gone up a paisa. It costs the state Rs 2,300 crore, but what’s the price of farmers’ lives saved?

Pavala Vaddi

Imagine this: you borrow at 24-36 per cent from the moneylender and sow a crop of multinational cotton. The crop goes bust and you are broke. You borrow more and then the price of cotton dips – oh, the wonders of the free market – and you are left in what is called the debt trap. Pavala Vaddi is the brand name of the YSR government’s drive against rural indebtedness. In addition to those loans at subsidized interest rates to farmers, women self-help groups are given small loans at ann interest rate of 25 paise. Nearly 85 lakh women have availed Rs 7,000 crore worth of Pavala Vaddi such loans from banks. A corpus of Rs 3,000 crore feeds this programme.

JALAYAGNAM

This is the YSR government’s grand assault on rural distress. It is a multiplier weapon: the 81 projects being built will create irrigation for one crore acres of farm land and work for thousands of workers. Earth movers and tunneling machinery are the artillery of this offensive. Hills will be bored through, rivers will be dammed and sinewy canals will be drawn on the earth. It is an effort to replicate the miracle of Nagarjunasagar and Dowleshwaram in all districts of the state. The pace: double quick time. The cost? One lakh crore rupees. Worth it?

RAJIV AROGYASREE

In his speech to farmers in Chevella on Marth 25, Y S Rajasekhara Reddy mimicked the urgency of an ambulance to underline his effort to reach out to the people: “If a family member is having a heart attack, you can call an 108 ambulance, and toooin, toooin, toooin, tooin, it will be there at your doorstep in 15 minutes.”The 108 ambulances are part of the government’s health care drive.  Its complement of services include the country’s first rural health insurance scheme. Poor families have insurance cover up to Rs 2 lakh. The scheme makes specialty health care available to millions of poor people who would rather die than go to a five-star hospital.

National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme

This is not a state scheme but the centre piece of the central government’s drive against poverty. Every regime since Independence has had one such scheme, or the same scheme under different names, really: Antyodaya, Jawahar Rozgar Yojna, Food for Work and so on.But NREGS is different.Those other ones were plaged by corruption. Thekedars organized gangs of labourers and pocketed a premium for getting them work. The wages were low, and work was given when available.

NREGS, on the other hand, is mandated by a law of Parliament. The law requires the government to find work for a labourer for at least 180 days in the year. The workers are paid Rs 80 per day. The pay is credited to their bank accounts. No middle men, no corruption.

Does NREGS work? Here’s proof: when Chandrababu Naidu was building his Hi-Tec City in Madhapur, the work was done mainly by subsistence labourers from the rural districts of Andhra Pradesh. Go to Madhapur now, and you’ll be hard pressed to find a labourer from Mahbubnagar willing to work for anything. Where have all the migrant labourers gone? They are at home, happy and employed, thanks to NREGS.

Indiramma

This actually an acronym which stands for Integrated Development of Rural Areas and Model Municipal Areas. It’s a device by which the YSR government wants to make AP a hutless state. The government gives Rs 30,000 to any poor man who wants to build a house for himself. Who doesn’t? You need to have the land, and raise enough cash for it. The government supplies you cement worth Rs 30,000. About 36 lakh poor people have built Indiramma houses so far.

Making IT happen

Lastly, let’s turn to IT, a laurel Naidu used to wear and preen in his heyday but not cannot wait to disown lest it cost him the welfare vote. During the YSR years, despite the main focus on rural problems, the state’s IT industry of AP notched up software exports of Rs 26,000 crore (2008). Some 1,01,505 IT jobs were created by 2006-07 in comparison to the 85,945 software engineers employed in the TDP regime. The YSR government also addressed a major limitation of the AP IT industry, the lack of soft skills in its graduates, by setting up Jawahar Knowledge Centres.