Behind Mayawati's 'reform surge'
Nistula Hebbar Posted online: Fri Oct 29 2010, 11:14 hrs
Lucknow : From food security to electricity to road infrastructure,
Chief Minister Mayawati is treading the reforms path — even opting for
Public Private Partnerships (PPP) at times. While contracts for over
25,000 MW of power generation have been given out this year, India's
largest expressway is being planned in Uttar Pradesh. And long before
the Centre came up with the idea of a food security bill, Mayawati
launched what is referred to as the Mukhyamantri Mahmaya Aarthik Madad
Yojana (MMAMY) scheme in 2008.
Instead of deputing ministers, Mayawati has hand-picked a core group
of bureaucrats to oversee the various reforms. At the helm of affairs
is Shashank Shekhar Singh, the only Cabinet Secretary in any state
government in India.
Commissioned in the Army in 1970, Singh was a batchmate of current
Army Chief V K Singh at the National Defence Academy. In 1979, he was
sent to Uttar Pradesh on deputation, to fly VIPs in the state-owned
chopper. He quickly became director, civil aviation, but it was when
Romesh Bhandari was Uttar Pradesh Governor that he got his lucky
break. He was appointed principal secretary to the Governor in the
early 1990s, when the state was under President's Rule.
Singh has played his cards right so far. When Mulayam Singh Yadav was
the chief minister, Singh refused to turn approver in the Taj corridor
case. This paid off when Mayawati came to power in 2007. He now
occupies a plush set of offices at the state secretariat. His clout
can be gauged from the fact that despite a running battle with BSP MP
and Mayawati's key political aide Satish Mishra, Singh calls the shots
in the state secretariat.
Singh ensured that all transfers and postings were centralised, with
him having the final say. "In a state like Uttar Pradesh that is a
huge amount of patronage at your disposal," says a disgruntled
bureaucrat.
Singh's confidante and right-hand man is Additional Cabinet Secretary
Net Ram. As principal secretary to the CM, Ram was witness to the feud
between Singh and Mishra. He threw in his lot with Singh, and was made
Additional Cabinet Secretary when Vijay Shankar Pandey was removed.
Among the most visible officers in the state is Navneet Sahgal, a
1989-batch IAS officer who not only heads the Uttar Pradesh Power
Corporation Limited (UPPCL) but also the Jal Nigam. He is also
Secretary to Mayawati. A chartered accountant by training, Sahgal, who
was Lucknow District Magistrate during Mayawati's last stint as CM.
Sahgal handles the massive power reforms undertaken by the state
government and is credited with many of the out-of-the-box ideas like
the franchisee distribution system in the sector.
When it comes to law and order, Mayawati depends on old faithful
Kunwar Fateh Bahadur, Principal Secretary, Home and Appointments. An
SC officer, Bahadur has the distinction of heading 53 departments in
the state government.
The one officer who stands out from this group is Secretary,
Information, Vijay Shankar Pandey, who shot to fame in the 1990s when
he waged a campaign against corrupt officers in the state, leading to
the indictment of Akhand Pratap Singh, who was reportedly close to
Mulayam. When Mayawati became CM, she rehabilitated Pandey as
Additional Cabinet Secretary. Although he was later shunted out,
Pandey has been made in-charge of the MMAMY.
POWER-ING THE REFORMS
Farmers in India are wary of governments which talk of just tariffs on
electricity. The only state which has successfully separated domestic
and commercial feeder systems is Gujarat. And the other state going
the same way could be Uttar Pradesh.
"We have already ordered the separation of feeders in Western UP. And
trust me, farmers have told us that as long as the supply of power is
constant, they don't mind paying for it," says UPPCL chairman Sahgal.
This is not the only new thing Sahgal and Industries Commissioner
Anoop Mishra have tried out. At a recent meeting of state power
secretaries in New Delhi, Mishra revealed that UP was trying out the
franchise system for power distribution in Agra and Kanpur.
The first contract for power distribution has gone to Torrent, which
also ran the Bhiwandi distribution franchise.
But there has been criticism from some, who feel that bulk power is
being sold cheaply to franchise holders and expensive power farmed out
to consumers. "It was a closely fought bid," counters Mishra.
What is more startling is the reforms in transmission that the UPPCL
is planning. "We have divided the state into two parts, Eastern and
Western UP, and plan to privatise transmission lines, upto 765 KV
lines, each for about Rs 4,000 crore. This is the first time in India
that transmission is going to be privatised, and we have already
issued Requests for Proposals," says Sahgal.
At the centre of the power reforms is the awarding of contracts
related to power generation. At last count, contracts for over 25,000
MW of power generation had been awarded or were in the works. This has
set off criticism and accusations of crony capitalism, as two major
power units at Bara (3 X 660 MW) and Karchana (2 X 660 MW) in
Allahabad have been given to the Jaypee Group, long considered a
favourite of Mayawati.
IN THE FAST LANE
How does one build a 167-km long expressway without having sufficient
money to pay the whopping 40 per cent viability gap fund (VGF)
required for construction of public roads in India. In Uttar Pradesh,
necessity became the mother of invention of a new financial model for
road building — giving birth to the Yamuna Expressway.
The financial model which the UP government hit upon was quite simply
to use land for development. "Basically, the entire land required for
the projects would be acquired and the amount of land available for
real estate development would be a bid variable," says Industries
Commissioner Mishra.
" The Government of India either follows the toll model or the annuity
model where the VGF is fixed at 40 per cent. We tried out a third
model and so far, apart from the protests in Aligarh, it has worked
out fine," he says.
Information Secretary Pandey says the government's decision to go a
certain way on social sector projects called for the creative
thinking.
The limited success of the scheme has encouraged the state government
to go ahead with an even more ambitious 1,047-km long Ganga Expressway
project, from Greater Noida to Ballia, and an Upper Ganga Canal
expressway which would connect Greater Noida to Purkazi. Not everyone
is convinced about the projects. "The Jaypee group has managed to
become the biggest real estate company in the state because of its
proximity to this regime," says Congress leader Akhilesh Pratap Singh.
"I refuse to believe that state funds are at such a low that we cannot
afford a few good roads."
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