Hyderabad: On 1 July morning, two weeks after he took over as Andhra Pradesh chief minister, Chandrababu Naidu had visited a beneficiary family of a government welfare scheme in Penumaka village near Amaravati.

Sipping tea with them in their thatched hut, Naidu asked them about their well-being. He then handed them Rs 4,000 in cash, the monthly social security pension which his government had increased from the Rs 3,000 offered under the previous YSRCP government.

But with another month set to roll in, the volunteers are uncertain about their future under the Telugu Desam Party-led (TDP) administration.

Though Chandrababu Naidu had promised to increase the honorarium of the volunteers to Rs 10,000 per month in the run-up to the polls, the Naidu-led NDA alliance has apparently taken no concrete steps to either reinstate the volunteers or honour its commitment to increase their payment nearly five months after it wrested power from Jagan Reddy.

Naidu’s promise came despite the TDP-Jana Sena alliance’s previous opposition to the volunteer system introduced by Jagan in 2019. They accused the YSRCP of using the volunteers as their eyes and ears and as a means to favour party sympathisers and influence voters.

Kasi Reddy, a 29-year-old from Vejendla village near Guntur, is one such volunteer apprehensively waiting for the government’s decision.

“We hope the new regime sticks to its assurance and takes us back into our jobs. We have not been paid our monthly Rs 5,000 for the past several months,” Kasi told ThePrint.

While Naidu kicked off the process in Penumaka, the pension disbursal at doorstep task since then has been assigned to the 1.3 lakh village/ward level government functionaries.

Weeks ahead of the Andhra Pradesh polls on 13 May, the 2.6 lakh volunteers came under the Election Commission’s scrutiny following complaints that they doubled as agents of the ruling party.

Acting on a complaint from one NGO, Citizens for Democracy, the poll body ordered that the volunteers be kept out of election duties and barred from distributing government welfare handouts until the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) was lifted in the first week of June.

During the heated election campaign, the grama/ward, or village and town, volunteer system became a central issue.

The welfare delivery apparatus—unique to Andhra Pradesh—was originally designed as a grassroots network for last-mile delivery, doorstep services and grievance redressal.

However, the TDP-JSP alleged that the volunteers were actually serving the YSRCP’s political interests.

While the MCC was in effect, hundreds of volunteers were suspended for allegedly indulging in election-related activities for YSRCP candidates.

At the same time, thousands of them resigned either voluntarily or under pressure to work for the ruling party with the assurance they would be back in their jobs when Jagan Reddy storms back to power.

The YSRCP chief said at his rallies that “his first signature as second term CM would be on the volunteers’ file”.

Kasi Reddy says his friend, a co-volunteer in Vejendla, was also suspended for attending one YSRCP gathering near the village.

A senior official of the AP Grama Ward Sachivalayas department said that out of 2.6 lakh volunteers, 1.1 lakh were either removed or have voluntarily resigned from their service during the polls.

“That leaves us with 1.5 lakh volunteers. The government would take a decision soon on reinstating these remaining volunteers,” the official said.

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Chandrababu treads cautiously

The Chandrababu Naidu cabinet reviewed the volunteer system last month but decided to go ahead cautiously because of issues related to financial and administrative compliance.

“For example, the volunteer services hired for a one-year period initially in August 2019, were being renewed every year till August 2023. Since then though there was no sanction, volunteers were being paid salaries. This is of audit concerns,” the official said.

He added a review is underway to streamline the system, for best utilisation of the volunteers.

Some volunteers worry this could lead to the selective removal of those considered close to the YSRCP. “We heard that the government wants to make a degree the minimum qualification to be employed as a volunteer. Such criteria would keep me out,” said another volunteer from Guntur district, who has only finished intermediate, the equivalent of +2 level.

In the initial months after the TDP combine took charge, several volunteers took to the streets,  submitting memorandums to authorities and pleading with them to reinstate their positions in the welfare delivery system.

Some like Kasi, on the other hand, have gone back to full-time farming.

Who are these volunteers

The volunteer and sachivalayam (village/ward secretariat) set-up was introduced in 2019 after Jagan Reddy stormed to power to ease the delivery of welfare schemes on the ground in a transparent manner.

The eligibility criteria for becoming a volunteer are a minimum education of class 10 and an age limit of 18 to 35 years. After submitting an online application, candidates were screened by a municipal or mandal-level committee. However, the TDP says only those favourable to the YSRCP were picked.

These 2.6 lakh village and ward volunteers were then attached to the 15,425 village and ward sachivalayams, or secretariats, across Andhra Pradesh.

The volunteers, who are from the village or municipal ward they serve, serve as access points for government services.

These young men and women disbursed welfare pensions door to door, spread awareness and identified beneficiaries for government support. They also helped people get revenue, birth, income etc certificates without endless visits to government offices.

The volunteers are paid a monthly honorarium of Rs 5,000 and are given a mobile phone or tablet with internet to carry out their functions. Each volunteer is given charge of around 50 households in rural and 100 in urban areas.

The village-ward secretariat and volunteer system helped the Jagan government during the COVID-19 pandemic, assisting the health workers on pandemic duties.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi reportedly appreciated the village and ward secretariat and the volunteer system during a virtual conference with state chief ministers during the pandemic. He also suggested that other states could emulate the model.

The Jagan Reddy government later also instituted the Seva Mitra, Seva Ratna, and Seva Vajra awards to recognise the volunteer efforts and dedication.

However, the opposition party accused Jagan Reddy of raising a “private army”, alleging that appointments were mostly based on recommendations or political connections rather than their merit.

Last year, Jana Sena Party (JSP) chief Pawan Kalyan made a serious allegation linking women trafficking networks to the volunteers. The actor-turned-politician expressed concerns that surveillance and data gathered by some volunteers were falling into the hands of anti-social elements. Naidu, too, made similar claims.

YSRCP leaders’ retort was that Naidu wanted to remove the volunteer system to bring back the Janmabhoomi committees that were in place during his tenure.

Jagan Reddy scrapped the committees in 2019, which until then were involved in the selection of beneficiaries for government schemes in villages and wards.

They were dismantled on the ground that they were allegedly filled with TDP men and resorted to corruption and misconduct against political opponents.

Jagan had also set up a department for volunteers and village/ward secretariats.

Meanwhile, some volunteers who resigned “under YSRCP duress” are praying that Naidu would take a sympathetic approach towards them too.

“We are not demanding since it was our decision to quit. However, our submission is that we never operated as party workers. It was our job to tell people about the government’s good deeds, we just did that,” says Katikala Obaiah, a medical representative, who was also operating as a volunteer in Kadapa.

(Edited by Sugita Katyal)

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