'Freedom to administrators is paying dividends'

Besides the state capital, it is the long coastal corridor where the Andhra Pradesh government proposes to promote industrial development in future.

While the Visakhapatnam-Kakinada belt is attracting major manufacturing units including German automobile giant Volkswagen's manufacturing facility, the state government also proposes to accelerate industrial activities in the vicinity of port-based towns, particularly in Prakasam and Nellore districts, Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy said in an interview to Business Standard on the eve of his government completing one-year term on May 14.

Reddy said that the decentralisation of decision-making and according more freedom to the administrative set up has been the hallmark of his administration.

The very fact that the government had built 2 lakh houses for the weaker sections of the society in just one year and distribution of 1.5 lakh acres of land to the landless poor on a single day showed that his policy of according freedom to administrators 'is paying dividends'.

Contended with fulfilling the Congress' poll promise of providing free power to the farm sector, the chief minister said that the Maharashtra government, which withdrew its decision of supplying free power to farmers, could as well consult and take suggestions from the Andhra Pradesh government in this regard.

Reddy said that the efficiency levels of the state utilities are constantly being improved and the subsidy amount being borne by the state government had come down from Rs 1,700 crore to Rs 1,500 crore a year despite the provision of free power and reduction in industrial tariff by four per cent.

In fact, he said, Crisil has rated the state power sector as the best in the country.

"Even the World Bank is not totally opposing our government's decision regarding free power scheme, and has recently sanctioned the Rs 1,300-crore urban infrastructure development programme to the state," he said.

The chief minister said that his government had been successful in achieving a threefold increase in micro finance in the rural areas. An amount Rs 1,200 crore was provided to the self-help groups through the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development in the past one year.

Expressing confidence that he would be able to complete all the proposed irrigation projects in the state, Reddy said that even the canal network of the existing projects like Nagarjunasagar was proposed to be modernised at a cost of Rs 3,000.

The government has also requested the World Bank to provide loan assistance to this work, he said.