Hyderabad: Six years ago, Chandrababu Naidu watched helplessly as then Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy dismantled his programmes such as Praja Vedika or people’s grievance cell, reversed contracts like the Polavaram irrigation project, drove away businesses like Lulu, and altogether dumped his dream Amaravati capital city project.
Now back in the CM’s chair, Naidu is not just reviving the projects he initiated in his previous term and wooing back investors and businessmen such as Yusuff Ali of Lulu Group, but also continuing Jagan’s welfare initiatives, which he is expanding and pumping more money into. He is inaugurating or resuscitating industrial ventures as well.
For example, Naidu has enlarged the social welfare pensions for the aged, widowed etc., from Rs 3,000 per month under Jagan to Rs 4,000, and claimed that while “the previous government spent Rs 21,631 crore annually, our coalition government has allocated Rs 34,000 crore”.
The Telugu Desam Party-Jana Sena Party (TDP-JSP) combine, in alliance with the BJP, won the state elections in a landslide victory against Jagan’s YSR Congress Party last year.
Naidu’s promise under his poll-winning ‘super six’ charter, Thalliki Vandanam, was inspired and is a recreation of Jagan’s Amma Vodi (mother’s lap) aid. But it is an upgrade, expanding the ambit and number of beneficiaries.
Unlike the Amma Vodi assistance of Rs 15,000 per annum which was limited to one child per mother during Jagan’s rule, Thalliki Vandanam is now being given regardless of the number of school-going children in an eligible family.
“While the YRSCP disbursed Rs 5,540 crore annually to beneficiaries, we are allocating Rs 8,745 crore, which is Rs 3,205 crore more,” said Naidu during the scheme roll out in June.
Thus, while 42.61 lakh students were covered earlier under Jagan’s scheme, the coverage now is 67.27 lakh—an increase of 24.66 lakh beneficiaries.
Last month, Naidu launched Annadata Sukhibhava, another reenactment of Jagan’s Rythu Bharosa scheme. While the Jagan government was giving Rs 13,500 per annum assistance to farmers, including Rs 6,000 from PM Kisan Scheme, Naidu, under the same arrangement with the Centre, has hiked the amount to Rs 20,000.
And then on Wednesday, Naidu, addressing a super six-super hit “success meet” at Anantapur, alongside JSP chief Pawan Kalyan and Andhra Pradesh’s BJP president PVN Madhav, announced the disbursal of yet another Jagan scheme on Dussehra next month.
While Jagan’s Vahana Mitra scheme aid to auto and taxi drivers was Rs 10,000 per annum, Naidu’s same dole will be Rs 15,000, considering their hardships since the start of free bus travel for women (Stree Shakti scheme) in the state from 15 August.
Naidu is handing the largesse even as he claims the state is reeling under a budget strain, more so from the weak finances he claims to have inherited from Jagan.
Meanwhile, in the past 15 months, Naidu has revived projects started under his previous tenure, from the grand Amaravati capital, the works of which were relaunched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in May, to the Anna Canteens providing subsidised meals for the working class and poor, with breakfast, lunch and dinner costing Rs 5 each.
The food outlets, set up by the TDP government in 2018, were closed after Jagan came to power in 2019.
On assets and infrastructure front, while Jagan, within a month of being seated in the CM’s chair in 2019, had razed to the ground a grand convention hall built by Naidu at Undavalli in Amaravati, the current chief minister has recently formed a committee of ministers to come up with a plan to best utilise the Rs 450 crore plush buildings built in Rushikonda, Vizag, which purportedly would have served as Jagan’s residence, had the YSRCP supremo continued in office.
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Forward push on industry side
Earlier this month, IT minister Nara Lokesh unveiled a plaque to formally inaugurate the TeknoDome unit manufacturing LED televisions, in Kopparthi Industrial Hub in Jagan’s home-turf of Kadapa.
The YSRCP leader had laid the foundation for the industry in July 2023 at the hub and the Naidu administration is now developing it further with some support from the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre.
Another example of Naidu pushing forward his arch rival’s project is the steel plant in the same Kadapa district.
An emotive issue in Rayalaseema, the steel plant was proposed in the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act of 2014. However, the Steel Authority of India lost interest in the plan by 2018, during Naidu’s tenure, citing feasibility issues.
In 2019, YSR Steel Corporation was formed by Jagan as a fully owned undertaking of the Andhra Pradesh government to set up a 3 million tonne per annum (MTPA) steel plant in Kadapa district. He laid its foundation stone in December 2019. But with the project not taking off, the YSRCP government partnered with Mumbai-based JSW Steel to set up the plant.
So, Jagan laid the foundation for the Rs 8,800 crore greenfield plant for the second instance in February 2023, this time joined by JSW Group CMD Sajjan Jindal, at Sunnapurallapalle near Jammalamadugu.
Yet, the project has not progressed much, and now Naidu is reviving it in partnership with the same JSW Group as envisaged by Jagan.
After talks with Naidu, JSW Steel now plans to execute the project in two phases of one MTPA each, with total proposed investment of Rs 16,350 crore.
The Naidu administration issued orders in July extending certain facilitations and assurances in power, water supply, road, rail connectivity and 1,100-acre land allotment to JSW Steel for it to begin construction of the plant by January 2026.
It also allowed JSW tailor-made incentives, including 20% capital incentive of up to Rs 607 crore to be disbursed over a period of 10 years, electricity duty subsidy of up to Rs 1,092 crore, and decarbonisation subsidy up to Rs 149 crore on investment of Rs 3,730 crore.
“Lokesh inaugurating a unit whose foundation was laid by Jagan, and Naidu encouraging JSW with incentives to start the Kadapa steel plant are testimony to our government’s commitment to industrial growth in Andhra Pradesh, regardless of who initiated the growth-spurring projects,” N. Vijaya Kumar, TDP spokesperson, told ThePrint.
“This is in stark opposition to what Jagan was doing, shooing away businesses brought in by Naidu during his previous tenure, be it the Lulu mall, hotel at Visakhapatnam or the Singapore consortium involved in Amaravati seed capital construction,” Kumar, who is also the chairman of Andhra Pradesh State Biodiversity Board, said.
“The fact is, there were hardly any industrial projects brought in by Jagan for us to derail, suppose we were tempted to,” he added.
Though there was much hullabaloo last year over the then Jagan government’s agreement to buy power from Solar Energy Corporation of India at a supposedly higher price, allegedly under the influence of businessman Gautam Adani following his meeting with Jagan in 2021, the Naidu government has not yet backtracked on the deal clinched under the Jagan regime. Government sources said this was because of fears of the impact it may have on the already delicate business climate in Andhra Pradesh.
While stating that “Naidu cannot afford to continue the vengeance streak of Jagan as it would only further damage the industry-investment sentiment given the previous YSRCP tenure’s destructive decisions”, Chakravarthy Nalamotu, chairperson of AP Tomorrow, a civil society platform, rued that “a visionary, progressive CM like Naidu should be following in the footsteps of a welfare-centric Jagan”.
“Naidu’s approach now, expanding Jagan’s welfare ambit and thus the public expenditure, putting populism above progress, shows the sad state of electoral politics in the country,” he told ThePrint.
“Knowing the TDP chief, we know his heart is into growth and development but he too has to adopt the winning formula in polls, and is thus visiting beneficiaries in their thatched houses every month and handing out the welfare money,” he added.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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