White Papers turn a weapon in war between YSRCP, Opposition

Amaravati: While the White Paper is defined chiefly as a government report or document intended to give information or proposals on an issue to the people, in Andhra Pradesh, they have largely become a handy tool to show political rivals in poor light.

This has been proved once again by the vast difference in figures in the two White Papers, both pertaining to the same period, published by the state government in a span of eight months on industrial sector in the state.

While the first paper was brought out by the TDP government, the second one was unveiled by the YSRCP government on August 21.

The then Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu released a White Paper on the industrial sector during his tenure from 2014 to 2019, just before going for the general elections on December 31, 2018.

Now, the YS Jagan Mohan Reddy government released another White Paper on the same subject, completely contradicting the facts and figures announced by the previous government.

While the TDP government claimed that they had created lakhs of jobs in industrial sector during the tenure of Chandrababu Naidu, the YSRCP government contended that there were only a few thousand jobs generated in the same period.

The Jagan government stated that currently, there are 201 large and mega units which have gone into commercial production in the state. Out of these 201 units, 173 have furnished the realised employment figures.

The percentage of realised employment when compared to the committed employment is only 46.

It explained that the committed employment was 1,01,809, but realised employment was only 46,836 employment, which accounts for just 46 per cent.

On the other hand, TDP government in its white paper claimed that 810 large and mega projects had gone into production with a committed investment of Rs 1.77 lakh crore and generated 2.51 lakh employment.

At that time, Chandrababu Naidu hoped that additional 7.66 lakh employment would be generated once the 1,211 large projects which are under process are grounded.

The huge gap between the statistics of employment, number of projects grounded and the investment in the two White Papers is conspicuous. The irony is both papers are prepared by the same department of industries and commerce, but under the different political dispensation.

Begging to differ with the White Paper released by the YSRCP government, former minister and TDP general secretary Nara Lokesh told The Hans India that the Jagan government itself had said in the Legislative Council in the recently-concluded budget session that the previous government generated more than 2 lakh jobs and the projects which were in the pipeline would also generate more than 7 lakh employment.

He further added that as a whole, the government acknowledged in Assembly that projects with nearly 9 lakh employment potential were in various stages.

When asked about the differences in the two White Papers, Rajat Bhargav, principal secretary, industries and commerce, said the government released a fresh White Paper because the figures in the previous paper do not reflect the reality.

He said that the previous paper contained unfulfilled employment numbers too, which created a confusion. He stated that this fresh white paper is based on the actual employment provided in the newly-established companies from 2014 to 2019.