RAEBARELI, UTTAR PRADESH
April 8 & 9, 2006

A little over a week ago, when the united Progressive Alliance (UPA) and Congress President Sonia Gandhi arrived here on a whirlwind tour of her constituency well ahead of the May 8 by-elections, she was taken on a 12-km detour to reach a poll rally at Lalganj, which is north-west of Raebareli. A worried District Pradesh Congress President Uma Shankar Mishra thought that Gandhi would not be able to handle the potholes that dot the 30-km stretch. But when the lady, who is recontesting for the Lok Sabha seat after having been forced to resign over the recent office-of-profit controversy, learnt of the state of the road, she decided to check it out on her way back to Raebareli. Lucky Lalganj. When the word reached the mandarins in Delhi, I am told, they swung into action, trying to complete a project held up for the last five years due to corrupt local politicians and contractors.

If Gandhi could help it, the Raebareli-Lalganj stretch would have been long complete. After all, this is the district that has time and again returned her family members-including her late mother-in-law Indira Gandhi, who gave this poor and obscure district instant fame by picking it as her constituency in 1967, and late father-in-law Feroze Gandhi-to the Lok Sabha. But the fact is, Gandhi can't help it all. While Raebareli may be her preferred electoral battleground, the state is run by her bitter political rival, Mulayam Singh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party. Therefore, there's a constant battle between the two parties over "ownership" of Raebareli.

Off-track: The Lalganj road linking Raebareli with Kanpur is a work-in-progress of five years

For Madam: Visaka Industries, owned by a Congress loyalist, chose Raebareli over Lucknow

Ringing in revival: Public sector ITI's return to business has secured the future of its 4,000 employees

That said, the district has always received special attention from the Congress government. Take the case of ITI Ltd, whose manufacturing unit here was set up in 1973, when Indira Gandhi was the Prime Minister. Thanks to a central government plan announced in November 2005, the ailing public sector telecom unit, which was on the verge of closure, is now back in business. ITI has set up a new facility in collaboration with Alcatel of France to manufacture equipment for GSM-based mobile services (there's a second facility at Mankapur, also in up). There's also talk of the unit manufacturing 3g equipment sometime soon-a move that will make it the first PSU in the country to do so. With 4,000 employees on its rolls and a monthly wage bill of Rs 6 crore, ITI's Raebareli unit is crucial to the local economy. "Some employees opted for the voluntary retirement scheme, and most others remained employed but idle. But now there is a ray of hope," says district magistrate Jitendra Kumar.

Other PSUs in the district such as NTPC in neighbouring Unchahar are also expanding. NTPC, which employs 1,100 people here and generates 840 mw of power every year, plans to add a fifth 210-mw unit here this year. Already, the Unchahar power station, with a plant load factor of 95, is a showpiece within NTPC. "The turnaround of the Unchahar plant has been mentioned by President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam in his book India 2020-Vision For The New Millennium," an NTPC official tells me. Other projects in the pipeline include a GAIL gas outlet and a heavy vehicle crash-testing facility, both of which will involve an investment of a few hundred crores of rupees.

Some brave private sector entrepreneurs are doing their bit to boost Raebareli's economy. Visaka Industries, promoted by veteran Congress mp G. Venkataswamy, chose Raebareli over Lucknow for its three-month-old asbestos plant because Gandhi wanted it so. "We've set up the unit to create local employment,' says Visaka's Managing Director, G. Vivekanand. Never mind that the plant must brave 12 hours of power cut every day. There's a reason why Raebareli must depend on the organised sector for its livelihood. "Raebareli is not blessed with a traditionally-skilled populace unlike Agra, which is famous for shoemaking, or Kanpur, which is a hub for leather manufacturing," points out B.D. Paulson, an IIT- and IIM-graduate and the local Superintendent of Police.

Engineering a future: Students get up close with IT at Feroze Gandhi Institute of Engineering & Technology

Betting on jatropha: Farmers have taken to the bio-diesel plant jatropha for better returns

No wonder, Raebareli is one of the 200 districts covered under the central government's ambitious National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. Apart from providing 100 days of guaranteed work a year to every willing villager, the scheme should put Rs 15 crore into the local economy. "I have emotional bonds with Raebareli stretching over five generations right from the days of Motilal Nehru," Gandhi said at a rally during her March-end visit. Clearly, in her case, that's not all talk.

The New Raebareli

While the district of 2 million people is still largely poor and backward, there are definite signs of progress. For one, mobile phone subscriptions are soaring. From 10,000 in May 2004, BSNL's cellular subscriptions touched 48,000 in January this year. "There's a lot of pent-up demand here," says K.K. Mishra, Chief Finance Officer, bsnl. For another, the business of education is thriving. Ryan International, a private school, opened a branch here a year ago, and the local polytechnic has just been upgraded to an engineering college. Says Ram Pratap Sharma, Principal of Feroze Gandhi Institute of Engineering & Technology: "The college has thrown the doors of higher education open to local people, who otherwise would be forced to migrate to bigger cities." There's also a proposal to open a National Institute of Fashion Technology in Raebareli. However, it hangs fire because Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav wants it in the state capital, Lucknow.

Sonia satrap: DPCC President Uma Shankar Mishra runs the local office, which surprisingly sported no cut-outs of Sonia

Surprisingly enough, there's plenty happening even in the farming community in and around the district. A self-help group of farmers, Malikmauchaubara, is promoting cultivation of bio-diesel feedstock, jatropha, after visits to Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, where the plant has turned around the fortunes of some farmers. "We hope to get a return of Rs 40,000 in five years on an investment of Rs 12,000 per acre," says Vijay Bahadur Singh, head of the self-help group. Apparently, the jatropha plant lasts as much as 45 years, consumes very little water, and is safe from the wild blue bulls (NILGAIS) that are common here. "Even the Railways is keen to grow jatropha along its tracks, and we have agreed to sell it 5 lakh plants at Rs 5 each," reveals Singh.

Gandhi's election campaigners are, of course, busy letting people know just where the credit is due. "Soniaji has done all the hard work," one of them told this writer. "It's a humbug that the development in Raebareli is due to Sonia Gandhi. The credit must go to Mulayam Singh Yadav," counters Ram Naresh Yadav, senior leader, Samajwadi Party. It may be that things will change faster in Raebareli if Congress were to gain control of Uttar Pradesh. But, obviously, the locals know better than to bank on political largesse alone. They are already taking control of their own future, and learning to make a living in a district that is a tug of war between two political rivals. People in Raebareli may love the Gandhi family, but they harbour no illusions about what Gandhi-or any other politician-can do for them.