Who are the ‘volunteers’ — loved by YSRCP and hated by Opposition in Andhra Pradesh?

The government has attached great importance to the volunteers, much to the chagrin of the Opposition parties, who view them as YSRCP’s political agents.

Apart from paying out close to ₹1,200 crore per annum as honorariums, the government is also spending approximately ₹243.34 crore as cash awards to the 2.66 lakh volunteers as a token of appreciation for rendering “yeoman service” to the state.

For the third consecutive year, Jagan, in May, felicitated and presented awards to volunteers for their meritorious work. At the awards function, he also asked them to build bridges between the government and the people, carrying the message of the government and the good it has done for them.

A certificate, shawl, and badge — along with a cash prize ₹10,000, ₹20,000, and ₹30,000 — were presented to the Seva Mitra, Seva Ratna, and Seva Vajra volunteers, respectively, while medals were also given to the best volunteers of the last two categories.

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Who are the volunteers? 

The Village Volunteers System is aimed at delivering government services to people’s doorsteps. It was introduced on 15 August, 2019, immediately after the YSRCP came to power.

The government appointed one volunteer each for every 50 households and each one of them is paid ₹5,000 as a monthly honorarium.

While launching the volunteer system, Jagan listed out their three main duties: Identify beneficiaries accurately so that no deserving person is excluded from receiving government benefits; ensure that the promises made in the YSRC manifesto are delivered to people’s doorstep; and find out the problems that people face. All laudable goals.

Later, the government launched the “secretariat system” in October 2019. A local secretariat was constituted for every 1,000 households. The volunteers are integrated with these secretariats.

While senior government officials draw up strategies for implementing the government schemes, volunteers are the actual “foot soldiers” — the boots on the ground.

They ensure that lakhs of eligible beneficiaries across the state receive the benefits of nearly 25 different welfare programmes launched by the Andhra Pradesh government.

The volunteers are thus seen as the face of the government. “The work done by the volunteers is appreciable but they should not be used for any political work or poll management,” social activist Ganjivarapu Srinivas observed.

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‘Surveillance teams’

Opposition parties, however, contend the volunteers are surveillance teams working for the ruling party.

“I don’t understand what’s the need for such an additional extra layer of administration when we already have an existing Panchayat Raj system as part of the decentralisation process,” TDP spokesperson Neelapalayem Vijay told South First.

“These volunteers were recruited and the system was brought in for political purposes. What is happening in the field is a 360-degree profiling of the voters, using the data they collect. Where is the privacy when a volunteer even peeps into a bedroom,” he asked.

Vijay also reminded that Rajya Sabha member V Vijaysai Reddy, once a close aide of Jagan, had admitted that 90 percent of the volunteers are YSRCP workers.

“Vijaysai claimed that party workers were accommodated in volunteer jobs as soon as the YSRCP came to power. They do nothing but snooping and surveilling the movements of the public. They keep a close watch on their activities,” he added.

The government has provided volunteers with to record data related to the schemes and beneficiaries. Jana Sena chief Pawan Kalyan accused some of the volunteers collected sensitive data of the public.

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‘We only collect basic data’

“We collect only basic details about the beneficiaries. And it is not done daily.  We make changes to the details if there are any new additions or deletions in a household,” Vankayalapati Kishan, a volunteer in Vijayawada, told South First. 

“Occasionally we assist health secretaries of the village/ward secretariats in conducting fever surveys. Other than that we don’t collect anything else. The collected data is uploaded to the server at the secretariat. We don’t hold any data with us,” he added.

Kishan, a B.Tech graduate, signed in as a volunteer hoping that their jobs would be regularised.

An applicant for the volunteer job must have passed Intermediate (or) its equivalent exam if hey are from the plains. In Agency (tribal) areas, the qualification is 10th Class pass or its equivalent. Those in the 18-35 age group could apply.

There are more than a dozen apps on the smartphone the volunteers carry.

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‘Data could be misused’

“There is nothing wrong in collecting the basic data of the public for governance and the efficient delivery of government schemes. But, the problem with large-scale personal data collection is interlinking of different data collected and creation of 360-degree profile databases of each voter/person,” data security expert Srinivas Kodali told South First.

The creation of these 360-degree personal databases is going to affect elections and electoral politics apart from the usual privacy issues. “The YSRCP is already using this data for its Gadapa Gadapa programme,” he said.

He opined that the government having in its possession detailed personal data is not good for a democratic society.

“It’s like this: For instance, a local MLA or the police has the 360-degree profile of a person and if that person participates in a protest against the party in power, his name can be ticked off from the beneficiaries list of welfare schemes,” he said.

While noting that such a large amounts of data could be misused, Kodali said he could not confirm if it could be utilised for human trafficking. Pawan Kalyan alleged that the data was being used for human trafficking.

He also recalled that the basic data collection e-governance architecture was created by the TDP government, which used to conduct smart pulse surveys. But the smart pulse survey was not conducted as regularly as the interactions that the volunteers have with the households assigned to them.

“A volunteer comes to me on the first morning of every month and hands over the pension. He takes my fingerprints as proof. Apart from this, he visits us whenever the DBT (Direct Benefit Transfer) happens,” Mariamma of Varalakshmi Nagar in Vijayawada told South First.

The ruling YSRCP has launched a broadside against Pawan Kalyan. Sensing an opportunity to woo the volunteers, the YSRCP has started circulating videos lauding them.