Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy salutes the village and ward volunteers for his or her selfless service in delivering the welfare schemes and authorities providers to the residents throughout the State, in Guntur district.
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
The village and ward volunteers’ system, launched by Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy in 2019 in Andhra Pradesh to bridge the hole between the federal government and residents, has turn into deeply politicised, with the Opposition accusing the ruling YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) of utilizing the volunteers as its foot troopers.
At its core, the system aimed to decentralise governance by appointing native residents as volunteers to supervise implementation of presidency welfare programmes. Each volunteer is assigned to 50 households and is liable for guaranteeing the clear supply of providers comparable to social safety pensions and important commodities. For their work, volunteers are paid a month-to-month sum of ₹5,000 every as honorarium. There are 2,62,483 volunteers, as per authorities knowledge.
Essentially, the volunteer system goals to carry governance to the individuals’s doorstep. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the volunteers grew to become the spine of Andhra Pradesh’s response efforts. They distributed masks, facilitated the transportation of sufferers to healthcare services, and performed family surveys to observe the well being standing of each household. Their tireless efforts earned them reward from numerous sections of society and confirmed the potential of community-driven governance in instances of disaster.
Also learn | ECI bars volunteers from disbursing welfare benefits, directs them to surrender electronic devices
But as elections loomed on the horizon, allegations of misuse and manipulation started to floor. The Opposition accused the YSRCP of exploiting the volunteer community to sway voters in its favour. It raised issues concerning the lack of impartiality, claiming that the volunteers had became property for the ruling get together for its electoral marketing campaign. This declare was substantiated by the truth that greater than 60,000 volunteers resigned from their posts and formally started working with the YSRCP to assist it throughout its marketing campaign. It was clear that the get together hoped to make use of the volunteers’ familiarity with the individuals on the grassroots to its benefit.
Following complaints by Opposition events in numerous districts, District Election Officers suspended numerous volunteers. Later, based mostly on a writ petition filed by Dr. Nimmagadda Ramesh Kumar, Secretary, Citizens for Democracy (CFD) of Andhra Pradesh, the Andhra Pradesh High Court barred volunteers from collaborating within the distribution of welfare schemes after the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) was put in place. Mr. Ramesh Kumar is a retired Indian Administrative Service officer who served as State Election Commissioner. The courtroom ruling was met with each reward and criticism: whereas some lauded it as a needed safeguard in opposition to electoral malpractice, others claimed that it created obstacles within the supply of providers.
Based on the courtroom orders, the Election Commission of India (ECI) instructed the State authorities to bar volunteers from delivering authorities providers for so long as the MCC was in place. Following this, Chief Secretary Okay.S. Jawahar Reddy instructed the village and ward secretariat workers to disburse the cash and requested pensioners to gather it from the respective places of work. However, later, as per the instructions of the ECI, the State authorities mentioned it might disburse pensions via Direct Beneficiary Transfer to as much as 75% of the pensioners. The relaxation would obtain it at their doorstep throughout May and June, it mentioned.
While the plan appeared to work on paper, in actuality it became a tragedy. Some of the pensioners died, allegedly as a result of they stood within the warmth for hours to gather their due. This expectedly led to an argument. Mr. Jagan Reddy and different YSRCP leaders blamed the CFD and the National Democratic Alliance for the deaths, whereas Telugu Desam Party nationwide president N. Chandrababu Naidu and different Opposition leaders faulted the State authorities, claiming that it wilfully averted using village and ward secretariat workers to disburse pensions at beneficiaries’ properties.
Based on a number of complaints that volunteers are influencing voters on the grassroots stage, the Andhra Pradesh High Court requested the ECI to take motion. The ECI has barred the volunteers from distributing money advantages beneath any scheme, together with pensions. The YSRCP continues to staunchly defend the volunteer system and claims that it’s being politicised. This total episode might have been averted if the volunteers had been merely allowed to do their responsibility and weren’t appropriated by the YSRCP for its personal political achieve.