Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav has taken a sensible decision to not announce fancy new projects but to concentrate on the realisation of those that had been announced with much fanfare months or years ago. He has to face the people soon
While completing three years in office, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav proclaimed that, over the next two years he would not announce any new project but inaugurate schemes that he had earlier announced. By doing this, Mr Yadav made it clear that in the remaining two years of his tenure, his focus would be on the completion of the earlier announced projects rather than the announcement of new ones.
This reflects Mr Yadav’s intention that he is gearing up for the 2017 Assembly poll. For the next election, he wants to go to the people with a bagful of achievements and not with false promises. The result of the last lok Sabha election was an awakening call for him and his party. The Samajwadi Party was hoping to win at least 40 of the 80 seats but could secure only five seats, and that too where the members of the Yadav family were in fray. In the rest of the State, the party was decimated.
The party’s election campaign revolved around the freebies that the Akhilesh Government had given. In his election speech, Mr Yadav spoke about free laptops that his Government distributed among the intermediate students, the launch of schemes like the Kanya Vidya Dhan Yojana, disbursement of unemployment allowance among the jobless youth, free education to Muslim girls through the Hamari Beti Uska Kal scheme. However, the lok Sabha result came as a rude shock to them. The party realised that freebies would not work and the need of the hour is to focus on hardcore development. A senior Minister in the Akhilesh Government even went on record to say that people took gifts from them and voted for the Bharatiya Janata Party.
In a bid to re-position itself, the Samajwadi Party has made an attempt to re-design its political strategy. Projects that talked about giving freebies have been either stalled or re-launched. The party’s mantra has changed within no time. And now, the Chief Minister talks about building infrastructure in the form of constructing roads or generating power. The focus has now shifted from free education to quality education and from unemployment allowance to creating jobs.
This change is evident in the speeches of the Chief Minister and other party functionaries. During a debate on Budget allocation, Mr Yadav said in the Vidhan Sabha on March 26 that investors would come to Uttar Pradesh only if they saw infrastructure that was well-tuned to modern needs. “We should have good electricity and good roads; law and order should be good. One small incident can give the Government a bad name. That in turn may drive investors out of the State. No Government wants that to happen. We all want that private people invest in our State and we are working in that direction”, Mr Yadav said.
Perhaps, this time, Mr Yadav has chosen his priority rightly. He talks about doubling the speed of development so that the State’s economy trebles. Therefore, he stresses on the need to improve road network. Mr Yadav talks more about linking district headquarters with four-lane roads. He showcases the Agra-lucknow expressway as a commitment to reduce the commuting time between Delhi and the State capital. He also assures quality power supply in rural and urban areas of the State by October 2016.
Mr Yadav has systematically set his target for the upcoming poll. He does not want to falter this time. The party wants to go to the people with a five-year report card which is high on development and low on freebies. This is a big assurance that the Chief Minister is giving to the people of the State. In almost all the public rallies, he talks about the completion of the lucknow-Agra expressway and about improved power generation by 2016. It would be a daunting task for him to live up to his promises.
In fact, it is customary for all ruling parties to make promise and to make it the Government’s USP. When the Bahujan Samaj Party was in power, the then Chief Minister Mayawati had promised an improved power scenario by 2010. She had told people that Uttar Pradesh would generate over 10,000 MW of electricity and it would no longer be a power-starved State. She repeated this commitment in all her rallies and in almost all the Press conferences.
Many memorandums of understanding were signed between the Government and private players. What happened next is not hidden. It came to light by the Samajwadi Party when it came to power, that the previous Government had not even applied for coal blocks. So, the whole assurance was a farce. However, the situation this time might not be so frightening. Mr Yadav’s dream of the Agra-lucknow expressway would be funded by the State Government. When Mr Yadav failed to rope in private players in this ambitious project, he dropped the idea of constructing the expressway on the Public-Private Partnership model and decided to go alone and construct it from the State’s resources.
The State Budget has made an allocation for the project. With finances ready, the Government opened its treasury for the farmers. They were paid compensation four times the circle rate, and in no time over 90 per cent of the land for the proposed expressway was acquired. Work has started and a large swathe of land has been dug up to pave way for the expressway. Even after the allocation and progress, and the Chief Minister’s direct involvement in the project, questions are being raised on whether the expressway would be ready by 2016. This is a big question, and no one has the answer. Though Samajwadi Party national president Mulayam Singh Yadav has asked the developers to publically promise to complete the project in 22 months, meeting the deadline is a daunting task.
Of all this, one thing is sure — by 2016, the project will reach a stage where it would be difficult for any political party to discard it. In contrast to the Agra-lucknow expressway project, the Mayawati Government had proposed an expressway from Noida to Ballia along the right bank of Ganga. But with the change of Government, the project died a natural death because there was no serious political effort from the present Government. However, this will definitely not be the case with the Agra-lucknow expressway. In the next 20 months, the expressway will take shape and no political party will be able to ignore it. Thus, in one way or the other, Mr Yadav has been able to give wings to his dream.
Similarly, in terms of electricity, the capacity to generate is expected to improve. By June, the State will get an additional 600 MW of electricity. The Anpara D project will generate 500 MW of power in next one and half months. The Harduaganj Thermal Power project, that was shut down for renovation in 2010, will start generating 120 MW of electricity. Under the Total Transfer Capacity, it is not possible to get more than the allotted quota of electricity from an outside source. Therefore, the generation of 600 MW of extra electricity will help the State this summer.
During his Budget speech last week, the Chief Minister said that he wanted to make Uttar Pradesh one of the best-performing States. Mr Yadav has made a beginning. Work on infrastructure development is on. Efforts are on to make the police more responsive. In the health sector too, the Government has taken steps to provide quality care at the doorstep. Mr Yadav admits that the situation is not perfect. But at least his Government has taken an initiative to improve the scenario. He is, of course, running against time — and he knows it well.