How Chandrababu Naidu's cashless drive for Andhra, 2 years before Modi, is faring

When it comes to meticulous planning and managing a crisis, few politicians can surpass the strategies adopted by Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu. For having been CM for 11-and-a-half years, including nine in a row, the experienced TDP supremo is known to make his moves deftly - be it in governance or managing the party.

But the one campaign for demonetising Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes that begun more than two years before Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s televised address to the nation on November 8, is proving to be a bigger challenge for Naidu than he had imagined.

What he hoped would help neutralise arch-rival and YSR Congress president YS Jaganmohan Reddy is now looming as a bigger task in providing modes for cashless transactions in the hands of his state’s residents. Naidu had apparently glossed over the post-bifurcation financial blues of the state when he set out to target Reddy.

Now, the state’s deficit is likely to spiral over Rs 24,000 crore at a time when the chief minister is wooing investments to develop infrastructure and provide appurtenant services.

Andhra Pradesh has no option but to lean heavily on the Union government to spur the state’s development, beginning with the raising of the proposed world-class capital Amaravati.

Fortunately for Naidu, the BJP is extending liberal help even though the state’s economy is still to gather momentum for want of growth in collection of revenues and in creation of jobs. This is despite Andhra Pradesh reporting an incredible 12.20 per cent Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP), much higher than the national figure, for the second quarter ending September 2016.

It is against this backdrop that Naidu has initiated post-demonetisation measures, including repeatedly pleading with the Union government for infusion of cash into the state to cope with the crunch and launch a mobile application called APPurse so that people can download it on their phones and carry on with their business, as well as other transactions on the go without cash in hand.

The state government wanted to launch it originally on December 15 but advanced it to December 6 to pre-empt the plan of contiguous Telangana, which is to launch TSWallet to promote cashless transactions. The chief minister’s eagerness to kickstart cashless transactions, before Telangana did, resulted in the release of a purposeless app.

Andhra Pradesh may have won the race against Telangana but it did not succeed in offering an application that could encourage people to download it and go for cashless transactions. Reviews of the app on Google Play Store so far are not encouraging.

APPurse is an aggregator of 13 mobile/net-banking apps and ten mobile wallets but they have to be downloaded and installed separately. Most smartphone users already use some of the listed applications. The incentive feature generated interest for obvious reasons, but that too let down several users.

What the app has excited is in playing the volunteer trainer role to promote digital financial literacy. Users by the droves are registering as volunteers and thereby doing exactly what Naidu’s subliminal propaganda grist is demanding - appreciate quickly that cashless transactions are the way ahead in an emerging digital economy.

In his role as an active member of the committee of chief ministers on digital payments, Naidu is pushing for an action plan to promote the digital economy in the country and find possible solutions to the acute cash shortage. He wants the best practices learnt by different states and some from abroad to be shared.

Above all is the need to educate people on how to use the cards, which is why he is getting trainers first off the block.

Appreciating demonetisation is for the long run. Naidu is expectedly looking for his brownie points and short-term gains. Given his current commitment, he will get it.

(Courtesy of Mail Today.)

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