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General Forum: Current 'Affairs' | | Chandrababu Naidu ko gussa kyon aata hai | |
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Posted by: Mr. M Kumar N At: 12, Sep 2003 1:58:59 PM IST
famous dubbing artist will become an actor.
Posted by: Mr. M Kumar N At: 11, Sep 2003 9:54:54 PM IST
Chandrababu Naidu ko gussa kyon aata hai
By Mohan Guruswamy
The well publicised episode with a very telling photograph of Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu standing in front of the blocked nala running through Hyderabad’s Chintalbasti locality, berating the Commissioner of the Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad, while she stands pinching her nostrils shut to keep the stench from overpowering her, speaks volumes about the state of affairs prevailing in the State.
The picture is one of an indefatigable and dedicated Chief Minister whose efforts are being stymied by a recalcitrant bureaucracy. This might even be true. My heart goes out to the Chief Minister, but my mind tells me that he and his party have been far too long at the helm to pass the buck now.
If the bureaucracy was the problem, Naidu has had plenty of time to fix it right. Instead of doing that, he became far too dependent on it and now the frustration is showing.
Now let us take a good look at the AP situation as revealed by some important economic and social parameters, for facts don’t lie. Constraints of space do not allow AP to be compared with all States for a given set of parameters.
In any case, there is no point in comparing it with Bihar, which is now a non-functional anarchy, or UP which is just a tad bit better, or Assam stymied by multiple insurgencies and the seasonal furies of nature, or with tiny States like Delhi or Goa.
I have tried to get a representative bunch of States, some on the basis of geographical contiguity, some with traditional and well established industrial centres, some with a seemingly alternate political system, and some quite different in terms of geography and natural resources.
I have therefore taken AP for comparison with Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Punjab and Madhya Pradesh.
The national per capita income last year was Rs 15,562. The per capita in AP was Rs 14,715, which was only better than that of MP’s Rs 11,244, and well behind neighbouring Tamil Nadu’s Rs 19,141 and Kerala’s Rs 18,262.
Punjab’s per capita income of Rs 23,040 was the highest followed by Maharashtra with Rs 22,604. The inclusion of Mumbai’s exceptionally high per capita income has a definite effect on putting Maharashtra so high in terms of economic performance. But what is surprising is that even Himachal and West Bengal were better off than AP with Rs 15,012 and Rs 15,569 respectively.
But the real story here is in the growth rates for the previous decade. AP grew 305 per cent but was well behind TN’s 383 per cent, Kerala’s 412 per cent, Maharashtra’s 307 per cent and WB’s 355 per cent. But the good news was that its growth was better than that of Gujarat (294 per cent) and Punjab (282 per cent).
The real success story here is that of West Bengal which while labouring under the rigid autocracy of the CPM has managed to jettison its doctrinaire approach to economic problems and has managed to beat AP’s performance by a good margin.
Kerala’s investment in human and social development too has paid off, even if its industrial base is thin and its agricultural resources limited. If it has a money order economy, so has AP with over 80,000 in just the USA on H-1/B visas.
While on growth, let’s take a look at the decadal (91-01) population growths. India grew by 21.3 per cent and crossed the billion mark during the last decade.
AP (13.9 per cent) did not do as badly as the whole country but was well behind the two southern stars, TN (11.2 per cent) and Kerala (9.4 per cent). All the other States in our list were closer to the national average than to the southern average with MP (24.3 per cent), Maharashtra (22.6 per cent) and Gujarat (22.5 per cent) quite clearly the laggards. The fears that the “south” is getting smaller may not be unfounded after all.
Now, we have a whole bunch of social indices, which show quite clearly that AP is not only well behind TN and Kerala, but also below the national average.
The all-India literacy figure is 65.4 per cent. AP’s is 61.1 per cent, well below Kerala’s 90.9 per cent, TN’s 73.5 per cent, HP’s 77.1 per cent, Maharashtra’s 77.3 per cent, and Gujarat and Punjab, both with 70 per cent each. But the real shocker is that AP is behind even predominantly Adivasi MP that has 64.1 per cent literacy.
The reason for this is very clear. The number of students in primary and secondary schools for every 1000 population in MP is 278 while that in AP is just 174. The AP Education Secretary better get ready for a good public dressing down from the CM!
The life expectancy of the average AP male (61.6 years) is less than that of the average Indian’s (62.4 years) and considerably behind that of TN’s (65.2 years) and Kerala’s (70.7 years). Andhra women seem to do slightly well with 63.7 years when the all-India figure is 63.4 years.
As usual TN and Kerala are better off with 67.6 years and 75 years respectively. But AP is better off on both counts than Gujarat (61.5 and 62.8 years) and MP (56.8 and 57.2 years).
In terms of infant mortality for males and females, AP with 65 per 1,000 for males and 56 per 1,000 for females is better than the all-India performance of 63 and 64. But it is way behind Kerala, which has achieved a phenomenal 13 and 9 respectively.
All other States in our chosen list, with the exception of MP (99 & 101) are much better off than AP. For instance, TN has 46 & 43, while Gujarat has 46 & 44 and WB has achieved 54 & 56. The AP Health Secretary is hereby warned to stay away from the CM.
Trade and industry circles, both in India and abroad, have made it quite a habit to clap with joy at the very mention of Chandrababu Naidu. He has picked up all the accolades and awards there are to get from the CII and other trade unions. But sadly the numbers don’t match up with the hoopla!
The all-India gross per capita industrial output is Rs 8965. AP’s is Rs 7707, while TN (Rs 15,523), Gujarat (Rs 24,225), Maharashtra (Rs 19,202) and Punjab (Rs 16,011) are all way ahead. Even the hill State of Himachal does better with Rs 8,856 while WB (Rs 9,430) and Kerala (Rs 7,896) are also better off. AP keeps company with MP (Rs 7,486).
Naturally, AP’s per capita value addition is also low at Rs 1,128 as opposed to the corresponding all-India figure of Rs 1,549.
Once again neighbouring TN scores better with Rs 2,517 as do Gujarat (Rs 3,952), Maharashtra (Rs 3,635), and Punjab (Rs 2,327). This is even understandable, given the relatively higher industrialisation and investments, but why is AP behind even HP (Rs 1,836) and Kerala (Rs 1,162), both States thought of as being considerably less industrially developed?
The picture in terms of industrial investments tells us why this is so. The total number of factories in India is 131,094 while AP accounts for a good 10 per cent of that with 13,164 factories.
All Indian factories together employ about 6.3 million workers whereas AP employs 7,70,000 or 12.2 per cent of the total factory employment. On the other hand, the total capital invested in AP is Rs 38,690 crore, which is just 6.8 per cent of the total of Rs 5,66,434 crore. In terms of gross output, AP’s is Rs 58,494 crore or 6.5 per cent of the national output of Rs 8,97,598 crore.
The value addition in AP is Rs 9,110 crore or 5.9 per cent of the all-India value addition of Rs 1,54,917 crore. This is quite clearly due to the low productivity achieved, as well as the generally low technology level of industry in the State, a far cry from the “clean, green and hitech” goal set out by Naidu.
Now for a little salt in the wound. Tamil Nadu has 20,249 factories with an investment of Rs 54,857 crore and an output of Rs 94,598 crore. Gujarat does even better in terms of investment and output with Rs 85,804 crore and Rs 1,18,551 crore respectively.
Maharashtra is even higher with Rs 1,04,691 crore and Rs 1,81,333 crore respectively. The total loans sanctioned to AP by the all-India financial institutions for the decade was Rs 46,581 crore out of the all-India figure of Rs 7,12,076 crore.
TN got Rs 60,540 crore while Gujarat got Rs 1,00,463 crore and Maharashtra a whopping Rs 1,70,284 crore. This investment pattern shows up in the employment levels.
The average factory employment per lakh of population in India is 1,202, while AP’s is 1,206. TN (1,720), Kerala (1,258), Gujarat (1,739), HP (1,447), Maharashtra (1,342) and Punjab (1,870) are clearly doing better while AP has WB (1,208) for good company and can take comfort that it is faring better than MP (1,027). Where is the AP Industries Secretary?
All this shows up in AP’s standard of living. The per capita domestic electricity consumption is a low 76.8 kwh while TN (97.0), Kerala (144.3), HP (89.5), Gujarat (83.8), Maharashtra (113.1) and Punjab (161.3) are well ahead, but AP can be happy with its performance when compared to WB (57.3) and MP (47.0).
Another indicator of standard of living are the per capita bank deposits. The all-India figure is Rs 9,242, while that of AP (Rs 7,178) is lower than Tamil Nadu (Rs 10,213), Kerala (Rs 14,198), HP (Rs 12,073), Gujarat (Rs 10,740), Maharashtra (Rs 17,936), WB (Rs 8,497), and Punjab (Rs 18,067). While AP has a good credit/deposit ratio of 63.6 per cent, Tamil Nadu with 90.6 per cent and Maharashtra with 85.4 per cent are well ahead.
Another good indicator of the standard of living is the number of motor vehicles per lakh of population. AP has 4,166, which is also the all-India average. But TN (5,942), Kerala (4,800), Gujarat (8,765), Maharashtra (5,448), Punjab (9,880) and even MP (4,920) are doing better than AP.
Posted by: Mr. Konu Venkat At: 11, Sep 2003 8:54:35 PM IST
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