The Hindu : "Naidu's `progress reports' will add to fakes"

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Dec 23, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Andhra Pradesh

"Naidu's `progress reports' will add to fakes"

By Our Special Correspondent

Hyderabad Dec. 22. Terming the Chief Minister's performance reports "yet another attempt to circulate some more fakes", the former Leader of Opposition, Y.S.Rajasekhara Reddy, said here on Monday that people would not believe N. Chandrababu Naidu's claims any longer.

Referring to the first report released by Mr.Naidu here on Monday, Dr. Reddy said like the fake stamp papers and fake notes that had flourished under the TDP rule, the progress reports too would go down in history as another fake report.

Disputing the claims of the Government point by point, he asked whether it was not true that 40 lakh unemployed youths were registered with the Employment Exchanges in the State but there were hardly any jobs. The Human Development Index had shown Andhra Pradesh in 24th position in the country, he said. The employment rate was 2.30 per cent between 1989 and 1999 and it had come down to 0.31 per cent, he said asking whether Mr.Naidu had not converted AP into the hub of unemployment.

Quoting from the Rajya Sabha records, Dr.Reddy asked whether Mr.Naidu would call a sign of progress the fact of 7.10 lakh blue collar workers being rendered unemployed due to closure of industries in the State in the last three years.

The State Government was hardly making 11.2 percent allocation for Education while the recommended allocation stood at 30 per cent, Dr.Reddy said. He said literacy rate among the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes stood at 31.59 per cent and 17.l6 per cent respectively in AP while some States, including Maharashtra and Karnataka, were far ahead of it. The school dropout rate was also the highest in the State.

Andhra Pradesh had the dubious distinction of converting education into a lucrative business and the first causality in the privatisation process was professional education whose infrastructure was now exclusively dependent on donations offered by students. The State had shamefully emerged capital of HIV/AIDS and had attained notoriety for a thriving kidney business. Poverty was the cause of the latter. Nutritional imbalance was also the highest in AP, he said.

Demanding that the Government make public the decreased allocations to the medicare and Health sectors, he said it would be better if the Chief Minister explained how he had systematically distanced the poor from the facilities by increasing the costs of treatment.

Reports of the National Sample Survey, a CII-sponsored study and the Centre for Economic and Social Studies had proved beyond doubt that AP had made no progress in economic development, removal of poverty, human index development and industrial and agriculture sectors, he said quoting the reports.

Dr.Rajasekhara Reddy hoped that the people would give a fitting reply to the TD for its rule of "falsehood and lies, fakes and scams".

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