Why politicians tall claims fail, turn false

The Politics of marketing and media hype. The Modi marketing magic is all over India now. Every chief minister is trying to woo investors. Many chief ministers are boasting conclusion of agreements with MNCs in hundreds of billions on various projects. Files are getting exchanged between countries, and several states with foreign countries. Unilateral agreements are being done in hurry without public discussion and without taking opposition parties also into consideration.

Projects such as capital city development, 4G communication networks, smart cities, power hubs development and so many other projects are being announced left and right. Ministers and industrialists are happy at the speedy announcements. No one really knows how these projects can be conceived without public participation and debate. Why this overnight urgency? For example, capital city of Andhra Pradesh was announced by Chandrababu Naidu at a place of his(cabinet) choice. He immediately held consulations with Singapore. The biggest joke of the decade is that the Singapore consultancy is ready to offer design of the capital city Master plan just for free. Even a person with little common sense can understand that there won't be any free lunch in this world. It's any body’s guess What quid pro quo is behind the scene.

The state of Andhra Pradesh is already reeling with huge budget deficit after the state partition needs to go with economic discipline. What is the need of digital revolution (Every hut should have internet) @Rs150/-per month. How blatantly is even the tariff announced by the chief Minster on behalf of the corporates. Don't be surprised if they even make it mandatory for every citizen to have internet connection like Aadhar card. A new slogan "every citizen should be a netizen”. A student may not have a note book but he should have an account on Facebook. There may not be a bench in the school, but students writing exams online is going to be the order of the day.

For example, there is no proper road between Devarapally and Gundugolanu in West Godavari district for the last 2 decades and the potholes on that road is 8 to 10 inches in depth and 4 to 6 ft wide. The default speed limit is 10kmph for any size of vehicle on that road. There are many such roads in the state. Prestigious Godavari road cum rail bridge which is the main connecting link between two districts (East & West Godavari) is in worst state for over 2 decades. Unfortunately, this is not visible and also not a priority for the government for total revamp. The government is only doing once again a patch work, that too for the historic pushkarams happening in 6 months.

We the people should not get carried away by these politicians in the name of digital hubs, water grids, smart cities, corridors (petro, automobile, mineral, shipping, petroleum, fruit,sweet,liquor) so on and so forth whatever comes to their mouth.

Every day, politicians make new announcements such as hike of retirement age of existing employees (as if there is shortage of employees or there is no un employment), pension to a new group of people, waiving off loans to a new section of society just to calm the public and to cover their inability to administer and manage.

Governments which cannot manage the canal walls strengthening or revitment before floods, speak of inter connectivity of rivers and completion of all irrigation projects of a decade before 2019.

Politicians at the Centre and state put public under these false promises for the first 3 years of their coming to power and the next two years start blaming each other for non cooperation as reasons for not being able to show progress. The Centre says that state governments are responsible for not allowing the centre to run its agenda. States blame centre saying it is partial for political gains or expected funds are not shared for development as per promise. The so called visionaries of 20-30 and 20-50 do not have vision or answers for these failures. It is the electorate that again gets fooled.

Wifi cities, hi-fi living, multi storied capital cities, malls, metro projects for every B class town are good for talk and (dreaming ) visualization, but without industrial production and consumption drivers creation, without upgradation of earning and spending capacity of the citizens no dream comes true to the common man.

So let us hope our politicians stand true to their words and prove their work on ground not just on agreement papers and announcements.

By Raghu Bhushan Eranki