The Hindu Business Line : `Naidu failed to understand rural situation'

Urban growth and development as well as the progress in information technology have been his strengths. His weakness is that he doesn't give enough importance to rural areas and agriculture.

Recently in Hyderabad

WHILE urban development, particularly the transformation of Hyderabad has been the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, Mr N. Chandrababu Naidu's contribution, his weakness is his "failure to understand the rural situation," says Prof S. Subrahmanyam, Senior Fellow at the Centre for Economic and Social Studies in Hyderabad, in an interview to Business Line. Excerpts:

Will the urban-rural divide and growing distress of farmers in drought prone areas of Andhra play a role in this election?

The major problem in Andhra is that agriculture is not growing; on the contrary, agricultural growth rate has declined. In the 1990s, even though this happened even at the national level, the deceleration was more acute in Andhra Pradesh.

What is the reason for this?

The main reason is the decline in investment in agriculture... both public and private. This is true not only in irrigation but also in power generation. In Andhra Pradesh, there has been no substantial improvement in generation of power, as elsewhere in India. Here, no major irrigation projects were undertaken, and yet, puzzlingly enough, the area under irrigation has been growing in Andhra. This is the contradiction we face.

The increase in irrigation is through tube wells and exploitation of ground water. On the other hand, there is actually a decline in the area under surface irrigation because of poor maintenance and various other reasons. The area irrigated by tanks has been under decline for some time, which can be understood. But the area under canals is also declining in Andhra.

What will this mean when it comes to votes?

In a scenario where the area under irrigation has gone up through private investment that is perhaps supported by banks, power becomes very important. Canal irrigated area is one part of agriculture and tube well irrigated area - in the backward parts of Telangana, particularly South Telangana - is another. So if somebody says we'll give free power to farmers, it will be attractive and make a difference.

But then how long can anybody give free power?

It is not feasible. Also, tube well irrigation over long periods is unsustainable because ground water level is depleting year after year so it can only be a temporary arrangement.

What about farmers' suicides? Will that be an important issue too?

Not a very important issue in this election, because there are various causes for the suicides. At first suicides were committed by the cotton farmers followed by groundnut farmers. Earlier, the suicides were because of spurious pesticides that completely damaged the crops. Then, the groundnut farmers were not getting adequate price, and due to the import of oil, oil prices also declined. Also our groundnut farmers are more in the drought prone area of Rayalseema, which is dry and rain-fed, so the yields are lower too. A couple of thousand farmers committed suicide. Being tenant cultivators who don't own the land, they had to pay high rent and had accumulated heavy debts.

But couldn't they have been helped in time?

The problem is that agriculture in our country is not protected against the risks and there isn't adequate insurance coverage. In cotton cultivation, farmers can make profits only if they continue for 10 years or so, as there may be five good and five bad years. The farmer who enters into cotton cultivation thinking it will solve his cash problems often ends up in trouble, and the fluctuation in both price and yield adds to his problems.

What happens to their families?

Nothing... there is no protection except for some announcements.

Crop insurance is not implemented properly in our country where there are a huge number of marginal and small farmers, making the administration of crop insurance difficult. Also, when crop insurance is not compulsory, only farmers with risky crops will go in for insurance, with the result that insurance as an institution will fail. Only if all the farmers and all crops are covered, can it be a success because insurance is nothing but crop subsidisation.

How important will be regional disparity, such as the backwardness of Telangana?

One interesting fact in Andhra is that though inter-State disparities have been widening since 1980-81 and the gap between Maharashtra and Bihar has increased steeply, if you take a State like AP, we cannot say that there is an increase in regional disparity within the State.

Then why the shrill pitch about Telangana's backwardness?

Telangana has been backward for quite some time. The major problem is that it is a drought prone area and there is no surface irrigation source with the result irrigation is dependant on some tanks that are the major source of water. There is disparity in development between northern and southern Telangana. Five districts of southern Telangana, such as Ranga Reddy, Mahbubnagar and Nalgonda, are in low rainfall area. But in the northern parts, the rainfall is higher, irrigation projects came there and ground water exploitation is also high. The result is a tremendous growth of agriculture in northern Telangana. Actually Telangana as a whole, has no meaning; one has to look at north and south. What would you say has been Mr Chandrababu Naidu's biggest contribution in nine years and what have been his failings?

Urban growth and development as well as the progress in information technology have been his strengths. His weakness is that he doesn't give enough importance to rural areas and agriculture. He is not able to understand the rural situation. The actual rural situation in Andhra is hidden because of certain interventions he made. For example, AP stands at the top in terms of micro-finance. But if you take the economic activity that is generated, it is quite negligible.

So the self-help groups of Andhra have been more propaganda than economic empowerment of women?

Yes. If you take the women's groups and how many are actually participating in economic activity, there are not that many of them. Some of the women are members in more than one group, with NGOs competing to get them enrolled in groups.

After all where can they get extra women from so they take them from one group and put them into another! And nobody is actually bothered about generating actual economic activity. They say we're empowering women by giving micro-credit, but where is this credit going? That is the question. You may say the money might be going into agriculture, but then this is not the route for that. That has to come through agricultural credit.

In the absence of additional economic activity for women generated due to micro-credit, you can only treat it as credit support for women... and credit support is always beneficial in the short run and not in the long run. Credit may be a virtue in the short run but become a vice in the long run.

Urban development became much easier for Mr Naidu as he could develop the IT industry. He has done wonders for a green and clean Hyderabad; we've never seen the city as it is now.

Many of my friends say they would like to come and stay here after retirement. It is comparatively cheap to cities like Mumbai and Bangalore and has very good facilities. That is certainly his contribution.

But his failure has also been in the realm of primary education. When it comes to higher education, the IITs in Mumbai and Chennai are dominated by students from AP. But at the same time, primary education in the State is in a very bad shape.

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