The newly appointed CM promises five lakh rural jobs by October.
Hyderabad: New Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy has decided to review all contracts signed by the previous Chandrababu Naidu-led TDP government to clean up possible irregularities in their award and payment of bills. Another priority of him is to create around five lakh jobs in the government sector by 2 October. Jagan had vociferously attacked the TDP government on its “failure to create jobs in government sector” in the last five years. Creating jobs for the youth is one of his promises as part of his “Navaratnalu” (nine promises) election manifesto. Jagan repeatedly told his public meetings that jobs must be created in the public sector to meet the expectations of the youth in rural areas.
Jagan, who was sworn in as CM on Thursday, told his officers on Friday to focus on streamlining the exchequer and creating five lakh jobs for the youth. He has started holding review meetings with officers.
Once the review meetings are over on 5 June, Jagan will form his Cabinet with around 18 to 20 faces and publish a series of white papers on different subjects. These white papers, reflecting the actual conditions in government will form the basis for the final budget he will present to the Assembly sometime in June-July, sources said.
The new AP CM has decided to set up village-level secretariats and create at least eight to 10 jobs in each of them. These secretariats will provide all kinds of services to villagers in a particular village so that they do not have to go either to the district headquarters or the state secretariat. These local secretariats will handle public needs related to land record, agriculture, irrigation, health, education, drinking water supply, power, housing, etc. This secretariat will be supported by a digital services centre for payment of bills and other service charges online. Jagan wants to create at least 4.6 lakh jobs through these local secretariats that will mostly employ the local youth.
Besides, the new CM has announced that he will appoint village volunteers with a monthly salary of Rs 5,000 to serve the villagers. One volunteer will be there for every 50 houses to look after their basic needs. “This will be the first of its kind in India,” said an officer from the CM’s office. Around 50,000 village volunteers will be appointed under the scheme.
The idea behind these schemes is that instead of doling out huge amounts on unemployment allowances, it’s better to create jobs in the public sector.
Jagan’s next priority is to clean up irregularities in all contracts signed by the previous Naidu government, particularly in the last months of its tenure. Jagan has ordered that all contracts signed after 1 April 2019 must be cancelled or their payments stopped. Other contracts where work progress is less than 25% should be put under the scanner.
This decision was necessitated as the Naidu government had signed thousands of contracts in the last days of its tenure and brought pressure on officers to make payments to the contractors, most of them believed to be members of the ruling TDP. The works are related to medium and minor irrigation, roads and small buildings etc.
For major projects, Jagan has decided to take a different route. He wants either a sitting or retired judge to function as a judicial commission to screen all irrigation contracts awarded by the previous government and approve the bids for new projects by his government. This will ensure transparency in government contracts and weed out hundreds of existing contractors who bagged the works through their political connections.
The Polavaram major irrigation project appears to be the target of this judicial review, sources explained. Jagan is thinking of handing back the project to the Centre, as it is a Central project, with 100% Central government funding, unlike the TDP regime which wanted to construct it under its own supervision. Handing over the project to the Centre would expedite its construction, Jagan feels.
Officers in the new CM’s team told this newspaper that the review and cleanup operation was aimed at containing the burgeoning payments’ burden on the exchequer. The payment commitment of the outgoing Naidu government had already crossed the borrowing limits of the state government under the FRBM (fiscal responsibility and budgetary management) Act. FRBM stipulates that a government shall not borrow beyond 3.5% of its GSDP (gross state domestic product) in a year. But, in case of AP, it has already passed 5% and the total debt now stands at Rs 2.97 lakh crore. Jagan also wants to remove all contractors with TDP connections.