Manmohan Singh with Andhra governor Sushil Kumar Shinde (left) and Reddy at the launch of a food-for-work programme near Hyderabad on Sunday. (PTI)

Hyderabad, Nov. 15: After six months in office, chief minister Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy is showing off ?decentralisation? of the administration as his biggest achievement.

Reddy, unlike his predecessors in the Congress, seems to have survived without a whimper of dissidence from his party members. But he has had to battle criticism from the Opposition.

After he took the chair, the chief minister?s priority was to decentralise the system that had come to revolve around predecessor N. Chandrababu Naidu. Revival of panchayati raj institutions and accountability in administration, numbed to inactivity by the mushrooming self-help groups, were high on the agenda.

Reddy said he had revived democracy in the state by empowering not only local bodies but also his council of ministers to take initiatives.

?I have decentralised the administration. Now even the chief secretary or the secretary need not bring files,? he said, adding that they could come to him only when the matter needed his concurrence.

?I am a team man and I believe that everyone should do his duty. I should not do a peon?s work and a peon should not do the chief minister?s work,? he said in a veiled reference to the Telugu Desam Party?s style of functioning.

Reddy today charged the Desam-led Opposition with trying to stall his irrigation initiatives. He said the promotion of irrigation infrastructure is a lasting solution for the ailing rural economy. ?I will strive to complete the pending programmes by the end of my tenure,? the chief minister said.

The chief minister alleged that the Desam chief is ?jealous of my success in reviving the rural economy?. His party is making all attempts to derail the process?.

The Congress leader said his government had received approval from the World Bank to fund his irrigation projects. ?There is no dearth of funds for all productive programmes,? Reddy said.

A mid-course review of all programmes, including free power supply, is underway, Reddy said, and necessary corrections will be made soon.

He dismissed as baseless the allegations that he is an autocrat, saying he took quick decisions to enable speedy execution of work. ?Sometimes dynamism is misunderstood.?

Reacting to comments that he is a chief minister who is continuously campaigning, Reddy said: ?I am a part-time chief minister and a whole-time political leader.?

He has also been criticised for reviving the Reddy raj. ?It is not true. I have a Muslim as my secretary and my office has only one Reddy at the senior level,? he protested.

Asked about appointing his relatives as advisers, Reddy shot back: ?Who can I fall back on for sound advice? Friends or foes??