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( This is the first part of a two-part
article, translated from Telugu. The second part will appear in the Jan. issue
of the magazine. In this section we shall see the reforms taking place under the
banner of privatization. In the second article we shall look at the so-called
schemes for women — Editor)
All
the schemes framed and implemented by Chandrababu under the training of the
World Bank and in the background of its reforms are always with multifaceted
effects. Fake transparency is its one face, high-pitched propaganda of people’s
participation is its other face, and doing away with the government’s
responsibility is its third face. Making hollow promises, offering nothing to
the people and mingling with the people in a dramatic manner (interaction with
the people) is its another important face. Above all these, the most important
aspect in these schemes is the widespread corruption and the filling of pockets
of his trusted followers and officials. The ‘Janmabhumi’ program, which is the
highlight of these schemes, is a strong example of this. The ultimate objective
of this scheme is to weaken the Panachayatraj system, which is supposed to be
democratically responsible to the people, and imposing in its place the rule of
nodal officers and his party activists. The ‘greatness’ of this scheme is not
only diverting the panchayat funds to fill the pockets of their near and dear,
but also to pocket the money forcibly collected from the people in the name of
‘People’s Participation’. And the other schemes like ‘neeru sanghalu’ (water
associations), neeru-meeru (water and you), watershed, water meter schemes,
drinking water supply by closing down small and medium level irrigation schemes
meant for guaranteeing drinking water etc. are all being implemented in strict
accordance with the World Bank. The ‘Privatisation of Water Scheme’, forcibly
imposed upon the people by the World Bank is the most disastrous and anti-people
scheme. People have to be appraised of the impact of this scheme. That is why
recently an open hearing was held on this problem at the Institute Of Engineers
in Hyderabad under the leadership of Neeti Privateekarana Vyatireka Praja
Sanghatana (Peoples Association for Anti-Privatisation of Water Supply). The
retired High court judges Justice Parvatarao, Justice Vamanarao, Justice
Chalapathi, Professor G. Sudha, Satynarayana formed a bench and gave a judgement
declaring the privitisation of irrigation and drinking water as anti-people and
most disastrous.
As a
result of the New Agricultural Policy as part of Vision 2020 (it is referred as
Green 2020) and the Electricity reforms, the poor farmers of the rural areas,
who constitute 70 percent of the total population in the country, are being
completely pauperized, have become beggars and are resorting to suicides because
of hunger. The condition of our all-India agricultural sector, which is
mortgaged to the imperialist ‘World Trade Organization’ (WTO) and particularly
our state agriculture, which has become a backyard for the World Bank is further
worsened. What the WTO is doing is only to work for advancing the unjustified
interests of the wealthy imperialist nations by sacrificing the interests of
backward countries. This fact was also admitted by the State Agricultural
Minister Vadde Shobana-driswara Rao. While participating as the Chief Guest in a
seminar on "World Trade Agreements – Challenges and Opportunities" on February
2nd 2002, by FAPCCI (Federation of Andhra Pradesh Chambers of Commerce and
Industries) at Hyderabad, he said, "Only rich countries are going to benefit by
the WTO, however we can also benefit by raising the quality of our products." As
a result of the unprecedented crisis in the agricultural sector, the migration
of the rural population, who don’t have land to till and no other work to do, to
the urban areas has increased. But are the towns in a condition to absorb all
these people? No they are not. Thanks to economic reforms and industrial
liberalization thousands of factories have closed, lakhs of worker families are
thrown into the streets and all the towns are filled with armies of the
unemployed.
The
handloom sector, which was next only to Agriculture in providing employment in
the rural areas went through reforms and was completely destroyed. Leave alone
the handloom industry even the power-loom industry couldn’t survive these
reforms. The present wind blowing in the textile industry is the jet-loom wind
of the foreign monopolies and their collaborating multi-nationals. The appeals,
Chandrababu is making to the center for saving the handloom sector is only
superficial. As if tired of making these appeals, he has now started making
efforts to completely wipe out the handloom sector. The closure of ‘APCO’ (State
owned textile marketing agency) is part of this. As part of this APCO has
already sent home 530 of its employees through VRS, and has been instructed by
the government on 12-04-02 to remove another 500 employees. There are about 250
showrooms, 12 godowns and 12 offices for APCO in the state. When the present
staff strength is not enough to manage this institution, the government is
planning to remove 500 more through VRS. Through this it plans to close this
institution and wash off its hands the responsibility of the weavers. Lakhs of
farmers and handloom workers in the state lost their livelihood and are
suffering from hunger. The Chandrababu government is trying to cover up their
hunger cries with many false schemes and propaganda noise.
Except for taking away even the little livelihood available, all these schemes
can do nothing to provide employment. And they can’t create any additional
wealth. Now we can see only the VRS and not fresh employment in every government
department. The employment exchange offices in the state are sitting idle.
The
Chandrababu government, which is moving fast with the reforms agenda is not
confined to pushing the agricultural, industrial and handloom sectors in the
state into crisis but is determined to uproot the co-operative sector, which
gives some employment and some respite to the local farmers. The sugar factories
and oil mills under the co-operative sector are intentionally pushed into losses
and are handed over to the private sector at cheap rates. Opposition parties
like Congress and CPM alleged huge kickbacks in these oil mills and sugar
factories and demanded for an inquiry into these deals. But their protests were
in vain.
The
Chittoor co-operative sugar mill with its 100 crores of fixed assets and 87
acres of land is one of the largest sugar mills in the country. It has a
crushing capacity of 2200 tonnes per day and has a total crushing turnover of
about 3 and half lakh units per annum. When its sale was announced the entire
workers and farmers and the people in the state severely condemned it. The
factory general body met under the leadership of its Chairman S P Ramakrishna on
15-03-2002 and passed a unanimous resolution condemning. But the government
didn’t listen to their demand. Above this the principal secretary to the
ministry of state Public Sector Undertakings, D K Panwar declared on 03-04-2002
the cabinet subcommittee’s decision to privatize a total of 8 mills under
co-operative sector including this one. The remaining mills are at Nizamabad (Nizam
Sugar Mill), Renigunta (Sri Venkateswara Sugar Mill), Paleru, Anakapalli,
Amudalavalasa, Jampani and Cuddappah.
Soon
the co-operative dairies also felt the wrath of the government and are being
privatized gradually. The Chief Minister, who has been saying, both in side and
outside the Assembly, that there is no question of privatized the Chittoor
Co-operative dairy, issued the notification (GOMS- No 16) announcing its sale
and VRS for its employees. Opposing this sale, the milk producers in the
district and dairy employees staged a dharna before the Collector’s office on
15-04-2002. But Chandrababu said that he can’t stop the sale. In fact this is
not an unexpected thing for the people in the state. Because they know about his
personal selfish interest in this sale. Its sale was necessary to make the ‘Heritage
Dairy’ under his wife, Buvaneswari’s name, to prosper by collecting 30 lakh
liters of milk and making 3 crores profit per day. The same is the story for ‘Vijaya
Dairy’ under the government co-operative sector. It was pushed into losses
in a planned manner. In Nellore district one private dairy is collecting and
selling about 70,000 liters of milk per day.
Another private dairy is also collecting and selling the milk in illegal and
un-authorized manner in the district. There are a number of such examples in
every district. Neither the Vijay Dairy officials nor its executive committee
members ever took interest or action to control the private dairies. The reason
is not difficult to understand. They are getting large bribes from the owners of
these private dairies.
The
ruling party members and the government officials are doubly benefited by the
process of privatization of Public Sector Undertakings. The process begins with
making these institutions bankrupt. For this purpose corruption and irregular
activities are encouraged in them. The ruling party members and the government
officials will get their share in these corrupt and illegal activities. Once
they are trapped in losses because of the large-scale corruption they are
offered to private enterprises at throw away prices. And in these deals they
receive huge kickbacks.
The
privatization of the State Electricity Board was also conducted on similar
lines. Before the beginning of the electricity reforms under Chandrababu, the
Electricity Board was making profits under the leadership of its chairman Narla
Tatarao. From 1995, the Board was pushed into losses in a planned manner.
Uncontrollable corruption of some electricity board officials and political
leaders, illegal supply of electricity to big contractors, millers and factory
owners with huge political clout, crores of arrears accumulated against big
contractors and industrialists, these are the reasons for the losses in
Electricity Board. The Electricity Board’s former Chairman, Tatarao, has
officially explained with examples that these are the real reasons for the
losses to the Board and not the free electricity supplied to farmers. The
astonishing facts coming into light day by day with the reforms are proving that
Tatarao was very correct in telling the real reasons for the losses to the
board.
The
Chandrababu government trifurcated the APSEB, having 80 thousand crores of
assets, into three companies: APGENCO, APTRANSCO and APDISCOM. In these the
total assets of APDISCOM (Distributing Company), with four divisions, would be
having at least 25 thousand crores of assets. But the Chandrababu government,
announced their worth as only Rs.435 crores (at their book value) in their
‘second transfer scheme’ declared on 1st April 2000. And now this will be sold
to any private person at half of it i.e., for about 220 crores (huge amounts
will be amassed by brokers in this transaction). Nothing more is required to
explain the criminal manner in which Chandrababu is transferring the government
assets to his own people. The Electricity regulatory commission has issued
licenses for the distribution and retail supply to these four DISCOM companies
on 1st January 2000. According to section 11(1) of this licence, any DISCOM
company can sell its property at book value. But it is required to take
permission from the Regulatory Commission if the asset value is more than Rs.5
crores. It means by splitting the assets to less than 5 crores value they can
easily sell the Board properties. Even the CAG (Comptroller and Auditor General)
severely criticized this clause.
The
majority of properties of the four DISCOM companies is located in the prime
locality of Hyderabad city and have very high prices. But the cheat government
of Chandrababu is showing their value at rates prevailing in 1959 in its Balance
Sheet. In this way the property value was assessed at Rs.6 crores and 77 lakhs
(Northern DISCOM – 1.36 crores, Central DISCOM –2.66 crores, Southern DISCOM –
1.66 crores, Eastern DISCOM – 1.15 crores). And if we go into the details of
DISCOM lands in various districts, it is having 5065 acres of land in the state.
It means 2,45,14,600 yards of land. According to the government’s estimate the
value of the land is Rs.2.76 per yard. Can land be available at this rate in any
corner of the state? The market value for its lands in cities like Hyderabad and
Vishakapattanam is in the range of Rs 5 to 10 thousands per square yard. In any
small town and in any corner, land value can’t be less than Rs 500 per square
yard.
And
there is no limit to the irregularities in the Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs),
which the government entered into with private power companies. The payments
made by the Chandrababu government to the ‘Lanco-Kondaplli’ power company will
shake any one’s heart. From this company, APTRANSCO purchased 3.65 Million Units
in August and paid Rs 28.48 crores at the rate of Rs 78 per unit! The Govt is
saying that these huge payments are necessary as per the agreement made with
that company. TRANSCO declared that this burden must be borne by the people in
the form of increased tariffs. And there is no need to describe TRANSCO’s
activities. Even after having surplus power in the state, the government entered
into PPAs with four private companies – Konaseema, Vemagiri, Gautami and GVK
industries. There is no approval from the Electricity Regulatory Commission for
these companies. Even then TRANSCO is spending hundreds of crores of rupees on
them in the name of ‘evacuation’. The reason for this is nothing but political
pressures. And there will be huge kickbacks behind these pressures. That is the
reason why TRANSCO is making losses of Rs 500 crores per annum.
We
have seen the electricity magic. The RTC privatization is also continuing in the
same manner. The Government is making all sorts of efforts to privatize the
Andhra Pradesh State Road Transportation (APSRTC), which is number one in the
country in operating efficiency, in fuel efficiency and in providing services.
The reason for the survival of RTC is only due to the fighting spirit of its
workers. Even then it seems that Chandrababu will not sleep till it is
privatized. The Government is giving free licences to private bus operators and
encouraging them to compete with the RTC. The Government is acting liberally in
providing concessions to them. Many prominent persons in the Telugu Desam Party
are eagerly waiting for licenses to operate private buses in various profitable
routes once this institution is privatized. Hence sooner or later it is going to
be privatized. Chandrababu is also using this privatization of PSUs and
Co-operative institutions as means for political rehabilitation. Earlier various
types of corporations were used to be political rehabilitation centers. In the
reforms era 80% of them were abolished. And Chandrababu is forced to look for
new avenues for giving favors to his followers. And ‘privatisation’ is very
useful for this purpose.
We
have seen the corrupt and irregular practices, which the Chandrababu government
is indulging in officially, directly and through its policies in the garb of
reforms. If we want to talk about the high level corrupt practices of the
government committed unofficially and about the economic offences encouraged by
the government by its negligent attitude it will become a lengthy book.
The
first to be mentioned in this category is the recently exposed ‘food for work’
scheme. This is the ultimate combination of un-precedent economic and political
corruption. It is a central scheme and is meant for providing food grains as
wages to the famine affected people in various states. Our state got the highest
quantity of rice against this scheme. And it is natural. The Telugu Desam
government in the state is able to blackmail the center with its 22 MPs. In one
way this scheme is nothing but a bribe of Rs.2000 crores to the state government
by the central government. If this scheme is genuinely implemented we could
appreciate Chandrababu. But this huge scheme became a feast for the ruling
party. According to this scheme rice coming from the center under this scheme
will go to the fair price dealers under the supervision of revenue officials.
Contractors (generally belonging to ruling party) who work under this scheme
will pay coupons to the workers according to their wages. Dealers will give rice
to them as per their coupon value. This is the scheme. But except for some stray
occasions this scheme was never implemented. Contractors, dealers and revenue
officials joined together and sold it to rice mill owners. Rice mill owners in
turn polished it and sold it to the FCI. In this way the government’s rice
reached back to the government’s godowns keeping the people hungry and making
huge profits for the contractors, revenue officials and rice mill owners. In the
assembly opposition parties including its allies criticized the government for
making this scheme a ‘feast scheme’ for the ruling party. Congress party
representatives had submitted memorandum to the central team, which came to
inspect the implementation of this scheme, demanding investigation by the
Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) into the corruption and irregularities
committed by the government in the implementation of this scheme. In spite of
all these criticisms from every corner the Chandrababu government shamelessly
swallowed this scheme and digested everything. The Congress also did not
mobilize the masses on this issue as it has an equally corrupt reputation.
If
we go a little further, we can see the high level scam of Eluru lands that
thoroughly exposed the Chandrababu regime. In the name of paying compensation
for the lands collected for the construction of the Eluru canal and for the
construction of houses for weaker sections in Pinakiwada area, the
Sub-Magistrate Potinaidu of that area in collusion with the defense lawyer has
manipulated court records and swallowed crores of rupees. They have done this
without the knowledge of the real claimants and also used some ficticious names.
How the government sanctioned crores of rupees to them immediately as and when
they asked for it, without verifying the records? And why did it give the money?
These are questions yet to be answered. The then leader of the Congress
legislature party, Janardhan Reddy raised this issue in the assembly alleging
that a scam of this magnitude couldn’t be possible without the Chief Minister
receiving his share. As a result of serious and hot discussion in the assembly,
the government reluctantly appointed the Justice Somashekar Commission on
02-06-1997 to inquire into this scam. After extensively looking through in 13
districts, after critically examining about three thousand related papers and
after hearing 916 witnesses and when the commission was about to come out with
its final report, the State high court bench consisting of Justice Subhashana
Reddy gave a judgement against the appointment of this Commission on some
technical grounds on 23-06-1999. Taking the excuse of this judgement, the
Chandrababu government immediately stopped the inquiry of this Commission and
cancelled the Commission. On a Special Leave Petetion (SLP) filed by Janardhan
Reddy on this judgement, the Supreme court overruled the high court judgement
and gave its judgement declaring that the constitution of Justice Somashekhar
Commission as proper and asked the state government to continue its
investigation. But until now the Chandrababu government didn’t do anything to
implement this Supreme Court’s judgement. By seeing the way Chandrababu tried to
cover up this we can be sure that he had receive large scale kick backs in this
scam.
Under the regime of Chandrababu there is no end to the list of urban
co-operative banks cheating crores of rupees from their members. The Krishi bank
chairman Kosaraju Venkateswara Rao swallowed 31.76 crores of deposits belonging
to 10,912 members and closed down the bank in August 2001. And after that the
Charminar co-operative bank with 32 branches in the city and with Rs. 321 crores
collapsed. This didn’t come out till the suicide attempt by its Chairman on
25-02-2002. This bank had sanctioned Rs 181 crores to 124 persons against the
guarantee of some worthless lands in Rangareddy district. This proves the
involvement of some very big persons in this ‘Charminar Bank’ scam. Only 13
people were given loans of Rs 100 crores from this bank. This couldn’t be
possible without the ‘co-operation’ of political bigwigs. And some other banks
like Laxmi, Bhagyanagar, Sitara, Aryan etc. have also turned their boards. Out
of the 165 co-operative banks in the state the condition of 30 banks is like
this. And what to talk about the various finance companies. The Nagarjuna
finance company has looted Rs. 80 crores from the public. On similar lines,
institutions like the Pennar Patterson Limited, Midwest Growth Fund Limited,
Asia Pacific Investments Limited, DCL Finance Company etc. have shown an empty
hand to their members. The Govt didn’t show any response to these attacks on
middle class investors. As government itself is a big cheater we can’t expect it
to take action against these ‘small’ cheaters.
After telling one more example of how the World Bank reforms are encouraging
various types of corrupt and irregular practices and economic offences, we shall
stop this list of economic offences. The expansion of the national highways in
our state is a huge scheme implemented with World Bank funds and under its
conditions. As per the existing norms the forest department has the right to cut
down the trees on either side of the road during their expansion and preserve
the wood. But as per the World Bank’s directive this was given to private
contractors. It limited the role of the forest department just to issue cutting
orders. And not only this, the World Bank has imposed another condition, that
forest department should plant new trees after the completion of road
construction. Forest Department is for planting trees and Contractors are for
taking away the timber. What a nice arrangement! For getting
cutting orders contractors will pay good amounts to forest officials. And they
take away crores worth of timber. With this arrangement loss to the
government will be about Rs. 160 crores.
All
the political and economic offences and corruption scams in the background of
imperialist globa-lisation and World Bank reforms are carried out in a
systematic and planned manner. They even display great transparency. They give
new definitions for justice, morals, democracy, public opinion, development etc.
Newspapers and TV Channels will be continuously highlighting these
irregularities and scams. But there is a clever cover-up in their propaganda
style. The information media will only talk about the people who amassed wealth
from these scams but their discussions will not go in the direction of finding
how they made wealth at the cost of peoples’ interest either directly or
indirectly. Even if they show some of this angle, they will cover up the fact
that people should fight for eradicating these corrupt and irregular activities.
The media will try to mould public opinion in such a way that except being like
spectators they can’t do anything to stop them. They make us believe that the
responsibility to stop the scams and the capacity required for it is only with
the state (government). And they cover-up the fact that all these are happening
under state patronage, which is essential for its growth.
In
this way all the bourgeois information and propaganda media will create an
illusion in the people in the name of the information revolution and
transparency, and mould public opinion against the people themselves. The
information revolution started in the background of reforms and its hollow
transparency will try to divert public opinion and put controls on constructive
peoples’ resistance. Will there be any exceptions to this, with them taking the
peoples’ side? There will be some such cases. But these are also determined and
confined to their business interests.
Converting everything into commodities, creating markets for them and making
profits by selling those commodities is the natural character of the imperialist
capitalist system. Not only physical and mental labour of human beings, not only
their bodies, not only the relations between them, but even their thoughts and
feelings are also converted into profit earning market commodities for
capitalists. In the background of globalisation and reforms, even peoples’
aspirations, their efforts and struggles will be converted into commodities in
markets created by capitalist institutions. They can get publicity till they are
able to generate profits for them.
Let
us see the publicity style about the economic offences, corruption and scams,
which are continuing unabatedly under the leadership of Chandrababu who is
enlogized as the leader in implementing reforms. The ‘reformist’ intellectuals
and media stalwarts who praise Chandrababu for his administrative efficiency
will always remain in the forefront in exposing these scams as well. They will
always be ahead of others in writing lengthy essays and giving lectures about
them. They are worried that these scams will affect the spirit of reforms. They
say that it is not proper for a genuine reformer like Chandrababu to neglect
such scams. And recommend suppressing them with an iron heel. They do not
realize the fact that Chandrababu’s iron heel works only against people’s
struggles and revolutionary movements and it will become like a rusted heel on
scams like this. Even if they realize this, they won’t talk about it. They are
not prepared either to see or to admit the harsh truth that corruption scams
will inadvertently follow reforms like a shadow follows its objective.
The
reformist intellectuals gradually understand the extent of development achieved
by Chandrababu government with the magic stick of reforms. The Loksatta leader
Jayapraksh warned the government that its budget deficit is ringing the danger
alarm. In one of his articles (Eenandu 4-3-2002) he wrote that government
expenditure is exceeding all limits, and that a responsive system is
disappearing. But he failed to realize that all this is due to the ill-effects
of reforms. Though he started a crusade against criminal politics he is yet to
understand the reality that the structure of criminal politics is built on the
foundation of economic crimes.
In
December 2001, Vaartha newspaper started the discussion on the impact of
economic reforms implemented by the Chandrababu government in the state in
various fields and continued this discussion for three months. On 15-04-2002, it
concluded the discussion with the heading ‘Economic Terrorism on Weaker
Sections’. This is a very meaningful heading. In fact the Chandrababu government
has entered into a war on the people of the state. This is the war waged by
government on weaker sections! This challenge has been accepted and is being
repulsed with People’s War!
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