Akhilesh Yadav: Moving UP's cycle faster

He has many critics, and in some ways is acting decisively rather late in the day; yet, there are some interesting departures from the sluggish norm in UP

Even Akhilesh Yadav’s critics say his tenure as chief minister has seen more infrastructural development in the state than any time before.

Take highways. The Uttar Pradesh administration is preparing – somewhat reluctantly, its officials concede - to pay nearly Rs 500 crore as bonus to the companies that have contracted and built the Agra-Lucknow expressway. It has been built in a record 24 months: This includes land acquisition, payment of compensation and the actual building. It is ready almost a year ahead of schedule. The only other place in the world a road has been built faster is China.

 

and was acquired in 2014, the period when the rest of India was tearing its hair out over the perceived injustice to farmers whose land would be acquired for shopping malls. Rahul Gandhi was talking about suit boot ki sarkar. The Akhilesh government acquired 3,500 hectares, involving 33,000 farmers. The cost of acquisition was around Rs 3,000 crore. The highway is bound to have a cascading effect on the way UP’s farmers do business.

The government is also building an eastern highway (348 km) that will link eastern UP with the rest of the state and, eventually, Delhi, more efficiently. Eastern UP is possibly the most fertile region in the state but the sub-economy lacks onward linkages. So, the gains of the vegetable and fruit produced here – the juicy piquant Jaunpur radish which can weigh up to four kg apiece, the succulent deepest purple aubergine (called bhanta in the local dialect), and the sublime langda from Banaras, the rich, thick cow and buffalo milk – rarely reach the rest of the state, let alone the country.

The state government is already running buses free of cost between Ghazipur and Varanasi to enable farmers to take milk to bigger chilling plants. It realises this not a sustainable solution. The expressway will cut travel time between eastern UP and the rest of the state, including Lucknow and Delhi, by almost half.

UP has never been a manufacturing state. It is not particularly anxious to change that. But, half a dozen mobile fabrication units have been given land in Noida and Greater Noida. Lucknow will soon have the largest number of information technology service providers, institutions for technical education and medical colleges – the government is offering a marketplace and hopes market forces will impose quality standards.

The most important agri-commodities UP produces are potatoes and sugarcane. The state government claims dues of cane farmers have been paid for 2014-15 and 2015-16, amounting to Rs 2,600 crore last year. Drought and flood compensation cost Rs 7,500 crore. The central government offered Rs 3,000 crore; the state government dipped into its coffers and spent another Rs 4,500 crore. Small and big welfare schemes – headed by the Samajwadi Beema and Pension Yojana (which will provide a semblance of social security to those below the poverty line but left uncovered by the funds provided by the Centre) have also been launched.

The government is clear about what it can and wants to do – and equally clear about what it cannot do. The Union government’s power sector reforms, the state says, are unimplementable. True, the reality of gaps in the balance sheets of State Electricity Boards (SEBs) are out there for everyone to see. However, it says, what is needed is incentives to privatise the entire power sector, as the government has done in Agra by handing over to Ahmedabad-based Torrent the distribution network. It has not been easy for Torrent, “but what they did was to source the power distribution lines underground, so that there would be no leakage. The state government used to get a revenue of Rs 1.50 a unit from Agra. That has shot up to Rs 4.60 a unit,” says an official.

He adds, with disarming candour, that it is just not possible for power sector reforms to succeed in UP. Indeed, it is the state that is one of the lowest revenue generating in the sector. Despite that, the government has demonstrated its resolve to reduce the subsidy by increasing the rates. In 2012-13, when the Yadav government came to power, electricity rates were hiked by nine per cent. In 2013-14 they went up 16 per cent.

Amid repeated criticism that law and order is going to the dogs in UP, the government has launched an experiment, to be unveiled on November 19. It will launch the biggest call centre in Asia for law and order, modelled on the 911 model in the US. The call centre will have its own police force and will be the first responder. A small squad (not drawn from the state police but parallel new recruitments) will get its orders from the call centre and will reach there. This force will hear the complaint,  contact the nearest police station and report back to the call centre, which will monitor the filing of a First Information Report and subsequent proceedings. “Citizen complaints are that either the police does not respond or it is in the grips of vested interests. If there is a a call centre that is monitored digitally, the human interface will slowly be eliminated,” an official said. A police on top of the police? No, the government says, just a way of depoliticising and modernising the police administration.