Naidu's men cruises on with Vision 2010

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal">BANGALORE: Use every inch of land, every drop of water and every minute of manpower - Andhra Pradesh CEO N Chandrababu Naidu''s mission statement for his constituency Kuppam was the first clip to slip out of his laptop. <br /><br />This followed a series of statistics and pie charts on education, health, literacy, irrigation, roads and even circulation of newspapers — all backed with his non-stop commentary on Kuppam and its saviour-CM Naidu <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">gaaru</span>.<br /><br />For 35-year-old A.Sharath, the project officer of Kuppam Area Development Authority (KADA), it has been a challenging job for the last four years, ever since he was handpicked by Naidu from Mehaboobnagar. "The Kuppam assignment is special for all of us because the CM wants us to take his ideas and dreams deep into the villages," says Sharath.<br /><br />Kuppam, Naidu''s main laboratory in AP, has seen many experiments producing miraculous results. With no complicated formulae, the Kuppam laboratory works on Naidu''s simple principle — balanced development. "The constituency is lucky to have CM as its representative. But being one of the remotest areas of AP till late 80s, today Kuppam is setting standards for other districts," says Sharath.<br /><br />Be it roads, sanitation, buildings, housing and water supply schemes, today Kuppam has become a role model for AP. The rain water harvesting programmes have enabled the ground water table rise by 9 m; the vegetation has improved, productivity, purchasing power and standard of living have gone up. "The people could never dream of anything like this before," Sharath adds.<br /><br />Today the Israelis are guiding the farmers with their drip and sprinkler irrigation techniques and many products from Kuppam are also being exported. Naidu monitors the work every 15 days and has drawn up a plan christened proposed achievable target (PAT) by 2010. <br /><br />The PAT aims at achieving 100 per cent by 2010 in areas like: sanitation (now 82%), water conservation (now 78%), literacy (now 68%), vegetation (now 68%), enrolment in schools (now 97.5%), road access (now 98%), safe drinking water (now 98%), family planning (now 60%) and health access (now 82%).<br /><br />Impressed with Naidu''s Midas touch in Kuppam, Hewitt Packard has launched the i-community project; Worldcorps Organisation has taken up health information system; Agastya International has kicked off its science to villages scheme and the prime minister''s Vidya Vahini scheme has brought in technology to classrooms.<br /><br />"Till 1989, officers were posted to Kuppam on punishment transfers. Today, it is the much sought-after destination. The challenges Kuppam offers, the exposure one gets here is unimaginable," says Sharath, who hails from a backward caste agriculture family in Kondrapole village in Nalgonda district.<br /><br />Is Kuppam being favoured too much because of Naidu? "Yes. But tell me where else in this country can the farmers call their CM directly over phone to discuss their problems?" Sharath countered.<br /></div> </div>