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Industry body Assocham, releasing its election manifesto for Gujarat, on Thursday urged the political parties to ensure that the Godhra riot victims got justice and said the government should remove various bottlenecks for speedier development of the western state.
“Godhra victims should be given justice as soon as possible. Their plight should be resolved at the earliest,” it said here, adding that “the State Government should focus on secular harmonisation.”
Elections to the 182 Assembly constituencies in Gujarat will be held in December.
A top Assocham official said, “We want the Godhra issue to settle once for all so that this issue is killed forever for the State’s long-term development plans.”
He also wanted freedom of media in the State by allowing it to function without any influence and biases to put forward the real picture among the people.
While releasing the industry body’s suggestions to the political parties for inclusion in their election manifestoes, Assocham Secretary-General D.S. Rawat told a press conference here that it has submitted a 15-point memorandum to the parties and their response was “positive”. This is the first time in Gujarat that Assocham has undertaken this exercise in election season, although the body has been doing so elsewhere in the country for the last 20 years.
He said despite its development, Gujarat was lagging behind many other States in terms of social sectors. For amelioration of these nagging problems, Assocham has, in its strategy paper, suggested that the parties should focus on the PPP-model, skill development, cluster development of industries etc for the next level of development of Gujarat. Gujarat has only three lakh registered MSMEs, the biggest creator of jobs after agriculture.
Assocham Gujarat chapter chairperson Bhagyesh Soneji, while supporting FDI in retail, said it would eliminate middlemen at all levels, make the prices affordable for the consumer, provide remunerative prices for the farmer, and create a large number of jobs.
In its report, Assocham demanded independent regulatory authorities in specified areas of decision-making such as telecom, stock markets, power, transport and civil aviation.
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