It’s raining jobs in Andhra as Jagan eyes total grip over villages

The Jagan Mohan Reddy government may have grabbed media headlines over the past few weeks for its clampdown on the opposition leaders and reversing certain policy decisions of the previous TDP regime, but two of its key initiatives that were deliberately kept under the radar have far greater implications for the future of the state politics.

On the face of it, the twin schemes—’village volunteers’ and ‘village secretariats’— may appear as one of those innocuous-sounding government programmes. However, an elaborate political planning has gone into framing the two schemes.

Consider the scale: Appointment of over 2.80 lakh village volunteers with a monthly honorarium of ₹5,000 and 1.26 lakh village/ward secretaries in the proposed village/ward secretariats with an initial consolidated monthly payment of ₹15,000. The two programmes have been rolled out without much fanfare that is normally associated with such initiatives.

“These moves will completely transform the rural administration in the state. The aim is to take the welfare benefits to every household, fix accountability and resolve any kind of public grievance within 72 hours,” a top source in the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) said.

What is village secretariat?

As part of administrative reforms, village secretariats will be rolled out on October 2, coinciding with the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. The government employees drawn from various departments will man these secretariats and are available for redressing the grievances of the people at their doorsteps.

People need not travel to the mandal headquarters to avail the government services.

“It is like taking the administration to the doorsteps of people,” the CMO official said. Each village secretariat will have representatives from 12 to 14 departments that have direct interface with public. “Come October 2, we are taking the government as close as 500 meters to the households,” the official said.

A recruitment test was conducted recently for over 1.26 lakh posts in the village secretariat. On the basis of this written exam, AP Grama Sachivalayam will hire candidates, over the next two weeks, for various posts including panchayat secretary, village revenue officer, Multi-Purpose Extension Officers (MPEOs), animal husbandry assistants, village fisheries, sericulture, horticulture, agriculture assistants, electrical assistants, village engineers, welfare assistants, women police attendants and digital assistants.

They all would be paid ₹15,000 per month initially for a period of two years.

Political objective

While the twin programmes are ostensibly aimed at ensuring the last-mile delivery of welfare schemes and services to every household and act as a bridge between the government and the people, there is a political strategy behind them.

“At political level, the village volunteer system appears to have a twin purpose of first dismantling the Telugu Desam Party, which has a strong cadre, prevented the spread of a resurgent BJP in the state. The village secretariat will provide an aura responsive governance,” senior journalist and political analyst K Ramesh Babu said.

NTR’s example

The first set of administrative reforms was undertaken in the combined Andhra Pradesh by the TDP government headed by N T Rama Rao in mid-1980s. The large and unwieldy Taluks were divided into smaller administrative units called Mandals, taking the administration closer to people.

Each Taluk was split into at least four Mandals and a total of over 1,120 Mandals were set up, a move seen as a major reform at that time. “If the NTR government had brought the administration within a range of 5 kms to the people, we have taken it within a range of 500 meters,” the sources said.

The YSRCP government has also claimed that it was first time that any state had provided 1.26 lakh jobs at one go through a single GO.

Counter to ‘Panna Pramukhs’

According to sources in the ruling party camp, the village volunteer system would serve as an “invincible army” to counter the growth of BJP which is keen to make inroads into the two Telugu states of AP and Telangana with different sets of strategies.

The party hopes that the village volunteers would be for YSRCP what ‘panna pramukhs’ are for BJP in its stronghold states.

The task of these village volunteers is to first identify the local beneficiaries, get to know about their problems and delineate appropriate schemes being provided for them by the government. A toll-free telephone number has been set up at a call centre in the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) to receive the grievances from the people.

Each village volunteer is allotted 50 households to monitor the delivery of welfare schemes and other benefits. The performance of these village volunteers is directly monitored by the respective district collector.

The objective of the scheme is to streamline the delivery system across all the 13 districts in the State and ensure effective and transparent implementation of government schemes.

The cost of recruitment and training of village volunteers was estimated at ₹13.5 crore. The payment of honorarium to the volunteers will cost ₹1,200 crore per year to the State exchequer.