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General Forum: Govt. and Politics | | Is Chandrababu Naidu really taking the state forward? | |
| Well frns..i am no admirer of any politician for politics sake..
but here is what they say..
US magazine praises Naidu
TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 06, 2001 01:07:46 AM ]
HYDERABAD: Profit a leading American publication has profiled the achievements of Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu in Information Technology and described him as an “emerging IT force to be reckoned with.”
The magazine in its latest issue dated August 2001, had identified seven persons in different walks of life for “doing wonders around the world”. In the preface to the article, the magazine says “ we call them hidden talents, they hail from around the world, their common thread; a passion for technology, for how its shapes our lives and how we can enhance its usefulness.
They have predicted change before it happened, celebrated e-governance when hardly anyone knew it existed”. Referring to Naidu, the article says that Bill Clinton had visited Hyderabad to observe the amazing experiment in e-governance that has revolutionised the way Andhra Pradesh’s citizens interact with their state and he was there to meet the mastermind behind this innovation, Chandrababu Naidu.
The magazine praising Naidu observed that, he had developed an information technology policy and made an impressive effort to attract both multinational and Indian technology companies to invest in the state.“Naidu is particularly pleased with the ripple effect the wiring of his government is having on its citizens”, the journal said.
Others who figure in the magazine include Michael L Dertouzos, Director of the Laboratory for Computer Science at MIT, Hay Ying, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, AsiaInfor Holdings, Beijing, China, Roberto Romulo, Chairman, e-Asean Task Force, Republic of the Philippines.
Posted by: Mr. Siri Siri At: 30, Apr 2003 11:36:08 AM IST
The reform process in Andhra Pradesh ensured that poverty levels dropped below the national average, revenue receipts improved, revenues of civic bodies were up, public sector units like Singareni Collieries climbed out of the red and showed profits. Earnings from IT-enabled services went up three-fold in one year.
This was possible despite recurring natural calamities and a steep fall in central devolutions
Special thrust was laid on irrigation sector and more area was being brought under cultivation under SRSP, SLBC (A. Madhava Reddy canal), Jurala and other projects. Work on bringing the Krishna waters to Hyderabad would start soon. Steps were being taken to ensure drinking water in all villages. Over 3.5 million children (5-14 years) would be brought into the schoolfold in two years as part of total literacy by 2005.
AP climbed from spot no. 23 to 2 in industrial investments.
Posted by: Mr. Siri Siri At: 30, Apr 2003 11:28:37 AM IST
The State has set the trend in public sector privatisation in the country with 11 units already privatised and with another 23 being in the process.
Revival of loss-making public sector units had been major success with units such as the Singareni Collieries making a turnaround from an accumulated loss of Rs 1,219 crore in 1996-97 to an expected level of profit of Rs 447 crore in 2002-2003.
Private sector participation in higher education had set a new trend in the country with the total number of engineering colleges going up from 32 in 1995-96 to 217 in 2002-2003 and the number of seats increased from 8000 to 62,715.
The human resource base had also helped the State to achieve rapid strides in IT services and IT-enabled services with the State recording a growth rate of about 323 per cent in ITES during the year 2001-2002, according to the recent study of Nasscom.
Posted by: Mr. Siri Siri At: 30, Apr 2003 11:19:42 AM IST
there were certain major constraints that seriously affected the level of achievements in the growth targets in different sectors during the Ninth Five-Year Plan.
The State had incurred irreparable loss during the 1997 cyclone, which shattered the life and economy of the coastal region. Recurring drought had impacted the economic growth of the State, as agriculture was the backbone of the State's economy.
Disaster management and its integration with the development process need to be focussed while formulating future strategies for the Tenth Five-Year Plan. Extremist activities and factionalism in certain parts of the State had affected the development process though there had been tremendous improvement in the maintenance of law and order in the State in the recent past.
Posted by: Mr. Siri Siri At: 30, Apr 2003 11:18:26 AM IST
We can learn a lesson from the case of APVAN and its eventual shelving. Naidu’s example also strengthens the theory and logic behind the J-Curve. Finally, Naidu presents a case for other heads of governments in what their actions should be. To this effect, I will also attempt to recommend policy that Naidu should implement before the elections.
Naidu’s examples in AP tell us something about the history of India’s economic reforms and the actions that other Indian states might take. Until recently, the central government easily sanctioned loans to state governments for so called development projects. This was initially meant to be an aid to states who could not generate enough revenue on their own to fully develop their state. Individual state governments however saw it as an excellent political opportunity. Here was a system that would pay for their loss-making populist policies and not cost them a dime. State governments would borrow heavily from the central government and spend them on financially unsound projects and policies such as ones to provide cheap rice. Soon enough, the central government ran out of money to lend out and grew smart of what was going on and decided to stop all such loans to states requiring them to thus generate their own revenue. This forced state governments to boost the economy in the state so that the government could fund its populist policies and remain in power. This spurted in states trying to outdo their neighbors in attracting potential industries and investment. We saw state chief ministers leading business and political missions abroad to other countries and talking to businessmen there. Naidu himself made a trip to Seattle recently where he met up with Bill Gates and gave a presentation on the benefits of investing in Andhra Pradesh. So this policy reversal by the central government and this added competition by other states in India has forced the other states to implement policies which would boost the state’s economy.
APVAN was a unique project for India in more ways than one. The most obvious of that being the fact that it would have wired up the entire state and made government forms and procedures more accessible to the common person. Then, it would have also streamlined the government and made it more efficient. Finally, APVAN was to be designed and constructed by private firms, and those too non-Indian firms. This was an excellent innovation seeing that previously the government attempted to set up such projects themselves which led to delays and over-expenditure. APVAN would have been a great boon to the citizens of AP as their lives would have been made much easier and routine things would become just that, routine. They would also gain from a more efficient government and if that called for ridding of unnecessary employees, then that too was in the best benefit of the citizens. However, while the government labor union was very well organized and powerful, there was no common voice of the citizens. This meant that Naidu was forced to listen to the unions since there was no clear way to measure the collective opinion of the rest of the citizens. The unions had an organized special interest that Naidu could quantify in terms of the election and so had to ensure their support during elections. So while the citizens that could have benefited from this project could greatly outnumber the union members, they were not aware of their benefits and were not able to voice their opinion. Hence, the conclusion can be drawn that to predict a policy maker’s actions, we cannot simply take sheer numbers into account but must also factor in things like the collective strength of the group and their accessibility to the policy maker.
The case of APVAN has also shown the J-Curve working in that it promised a better standard of living in the long-run but caused difficulties in the short term. It also validates the logic in that a government is unlikely to implement economic reforms (and in some case even rolling back on reforms) just before elections and instead choosing to take populist measures. While there are not many policy decisions taken by Naidu which can be singled out and termed populist, we can see that recently he has kept more quiet about his ambitious computerization plans and in fact promoted his social programs such as Janamabhoomi. He even recently had a World Bank loan sanctioned for almost a billion dollars to use in building primary education and health. However, Naidu had other options that he could have implemented. It is rather obvious that projects such as APVAN would have been greatly beneficial to the state and as such should have been allowed to be completed. However Naidu felt that they might cost him the elections and so scrapped them because of the opposition from certain unions. He instead could have done something similar along the lines of Margaret Thatcher’s policies. Her party gained most of its support from the middle class families and so to build her base, she had to get more people into the middle class. She did so by making people more interested in capitalism by giving them stock in companies and houses to own. Naidu could have done something similar by educating the masses about the benefit of a network such as APVAN. Since most of the rural farmers probably don’t realize the benefits of computers and their widespread use, Naidu could have stood to gain from having them understand the gains. This way, he probably could have still gone ahead with the reforms and win the elections since the voters would understand the debate when the opposition approached them. Although it could be easily said that Naidu could chose to ignore the government employees that might be displaced as a result of such projects, he would stand to gain in the long run by winning their confidence. If there is any truth in the idea that they might lose their jobs (which seems highly likely) then Naidu should ensure them of other jobs. And if the rumors are false, then Naidu should ensure them of such.
Posted by: Mr. Siri Siri At: 30, Apr 2003 11:14:30 AM IST
Naidu has faced a number of problems and most of them have expectedly come from his own government employees (the bureaucrats). APVAN too has now been tabled for similar reasons and I will present something in the form of a post-mortem report. Yet another reason for such major opposition has been the size of expenditure the state government would have to incur as a result of all these projects. Also, another peculiarity of Indian politics is for opposition parties to oppose the government on issues which it could gain popularity and to bring up popular opposition.
Most of Naidu’s programs have asked for the government’s operations in becoming more transparent and to make the bureaucrats more accountable. Even his social programs like Janamabhoomi required the citizens holding the government accountable for policy and to audit its accounts. With the statewide network, everyone would have access to government information and be able to see how the bureaucrats were performing. With such a network, every minister’s files would become trackable by the public. Furthermore, APVAN would have made the filling out of forms and accomplishments of simple tasks such as obtaining a permit or paying utility bills extremely easy and hassle free. However, by having this online, the government employees (like the clerks and lower-grade bureaucrats) would lose out on the power that they had from having people to pay them and go through them. This is another fear that these employees have had. The employees on the lower scale have felt that they would be made redundant by the computers and have so mounted the political pressure to stop the project.
Today APVAN has been laid to rest and along with it has rested Naidu’s most ambitious project in terms of size and money. Naidu finally succumbed to the political pressure that was mounted by labor unions in the government. The first opposition for APVAN came from opposition parties when they asked the government to justify the government spending an equivalent of $35 million over a period of seven years. Other opposition parties were not only opposed to such a sum but to the fact that it would give monopoly control to the Singapore consortium. However, the main opposition came from the labor union because of fears of unemployment. They set up an association called the AP Non-Gazetted Officers Association (APNGO) and held consultations with Naidu and even threatened agitation. They claimed that 50,000 government employees jobless and claimed to be fighting for the common man since the common citizen would have to pay a service fee for using the computer network (although I cant imagine the fee being more than what they pay currently for the form and bribe). Naidu was quick to sense the damage that a union of one million state employees could have on elections and so listened to them and scrapped the project. APNGO’s president even went as far as saying that, "APVAN was on the lines of the East India Company. Employees are extremely happy…that the project has been dropped."
Posted by: Mr. Siri Siri At: 30, Apr 2003 11:11:44 AM IST
he has announced that he plans to have 100% literacy by the year 2010 and to make the state the most prosperous in terms of standards of living in India in the next ten years. Behind this ambition lies Naidu’s greatest social program, called Janamabhoomi. This program relies on having the people work with each other at the grassroots and to get them involved in the development process. India has always had a culture of a panchayat which is a group of generally five elders in the village who mediate and judge problems in the village. This system is now part of the Indian judiciary. Extending upon this, Naidu has tried to mobilize the people into working with each other in setting up organizations and committees. Some of them are credit groups (providing low-interest short-term loans), water associations, education committees, and health committees. While the government will be out to educate and organize such groups, its main role in this program will be to implement suitable policy and train the people and group them according to their skill. One major development through this program has been an attempt at making the government more transparent. Naidu hopes to have the citizens more involved in the decision making process and as such hold the government bureaucrats accountable for their actions. This means that the people would have a right to the information and be able to audit government accounts. Although this is a great plan into streamlining and improving the bureaucracy, it is obvious that it would not go down too well with the bureaucrats. In terms of the social objectives of Janamabhoomi, it has been very successful with improvements across the board, in areas such as water, sanitation, health, and also veterinary care.
Some other programs that Naidu has implemented are efforts to have complete literacy, massive health programs (immunization, family planning, malaria, etc.), and a clean and green AP program to promote environment awareness.
Posted by: Mr. Siri Siri At: 30, Apr 2003 11:10:04 AM IST
Innovative social programs are all great, but where Naidu has stood out has been his programs to implement computerization into the entire state. Of this, was his most ambitious project ever, APVAN. APVAN was to wire up the entire state into one large network (or intranet) and hook up every government office with it. This way, information could be accessed and shared across the board at a great speed. Naidu already has a similar but smaller system set up in his office where he can connect to the network and get data on things like condition of power generation and transmission, education levels, etc. He already uses this data by keeping the ministers and bureaucrats on their toes by calling them at all times of the day and questioning them based on the data. Now Naidu envisions a similar system set up across the entire state. Such a network would have multiple purposes. The first one is to give all government employees and ministers access to instant information and data. The second one is to streamline government working. This is to be achieved through a system of online government (sort of like online banking). Here, citizens would be able to print out forms, apply for licenses and permits, pay their taxes, along with having access to all the information. Further more, Naidu currently has a file-tracking system in his secretariat where he can track every minister’s files and see how long it took and what decision was taken. He hopes to make even this information public and have the citizens track the ministers’ files.
APVAN was to be built by a consortium of Singaporean companies called Singapore Network. This company was chosen because Singapore has a proven record of government networking, being the first country to be completely wired. The funding was coming from the state government and while the government was to own all the hardware of the system, APVAN was the service provider. However, such a large-scale project is not without its problems and opposition. Naidu ensured that there would not be too many technical problems and that the project would be completed on time by handing it over to private companies with experience in this sort of work. What Naidu ended up facing as a result of this decision is the opposition to government functioning being handed over to private companies, and that too non-Indian companies. People felt that Naidu was handing over government departments and agencies to the consortium of Singaporean companies (which by the way is not at all true). Coupled with this was the fear that employees would lose their jobs. I will discuss the repercussions of this opposition and the conclusion drawn from it in the next section titled Current Actions.
Naidu also has other plans along with APVAN to make Andhra Pradesh the IT capital of India. Until recently, Bangalore has been considered the Silicon Valley of India with most of the computer and software companies setting up office there. Naidu, however, planned to change all that and make Hyderabad (the capital of Andhra Pradesh) the IT center. He even went as far as coining the name Cyberabad. He has developed a center in Hyderabad called HI-TEC City. Here he has set up what he claims to be the perfect environment for an IT company. He has it completely wired up and provides all the facilities that a software development firm would need. To help it out further, he has also set up the Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) in Hyderabad. To show the success of these, we can see that major software firms from India and around the world are biting the bait. Microsoft set up its first office in India in Hyderabad. The HI-TEC City (still under construction) is already over 77% booked with firms such as Novell and Oracle. Naidu has also realized that for Andhra Pradesh to become a modern and industrialized state, he must also build infrastructure. To this effect he has been busy in actively promoting heavy industries to set up in AP. He has reduced the paperwork and red-tape required for all such companies and has also given incentives in the form of tax breaks and the like. He has also reformed the power sector by breaking up the AP State Electricity Board into separate corporations for generation, transmission, and distribution.
Posted by: Mr. Siri Siri At: 30, Apr 2003 11:08:50 AM IST
so my dear frns..thsi is just the beginning of the beginning...a lot more needs to be achieved..and all of us need to work towards that..
lets be happy that at least a road map has been prepared for AP's success and lets not become complacent ..
Posted by: Mr. Siri Siri At: 30, Apr 2003 11:06:05 AM IST
who's the "ugly man with a lap-top"? Described by a political rival as a man who looks "like a pickpocket at a bus stop", he is none other than Andhra Pradesh's Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu. As anyone who has been to India recently will know, Naidu's achievements are becoming somewhat legendary in urban circles. In a short space of time, he has given Bangalore, the hitherto undisputed Silicon City of India, a run for its money by turning Hyderabad into Cyberabad. He has enticed the likes of Oracle, IBM and Microsoft to his state. Roads are being widened and repaired all over the state, and Hyderabad has got 34 new flyovers.
Mercifully enough, Mr Naidu is also very aware that nearly 60% of his people are illiterate, and only by transforming the prospects of the poor farmers can he hope to change things. He has created a "people-centred development process" to make the government sensitive to the needs of the smallest village.
Posted by: Mr. Siri Siri At: 30, Apr 2003 11:03:16 AM IST
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