Comments
The National Congress Party’s manifesto for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections is promising, among others, complete loan waiver to all farmers, separate boards for the unorganised sector to provide them social security and assure them fair wages, and 100 day guaranteed jobs for graduate youth in urban areas.
The Sharad Pawar-led party, which is in an alliance with the Congress, is fielding candidates in 20 Lok Sabha constituencies from its quota of 22 seats in Maharashtra. The party has given two seats to its allies.
Hemant Takle, Member of the Legislative Council, Maharashtra, and NCP Treasurer said: “The decision on demonetisation has had a cascading impact on trade and industry. Unemployment has gone up. There are no new opportunities.”
“The number of job seekers under MNREGA has gone up. Farmer suicides have not stopped. There are so many issues that need focus so that common man’s problems are solved.”
Takle emphasised that the NCP will highlight the fact there has been systematic undermining of institutions (Central Bureau of Investigation, Supreme Court and Reserve Bank of India).
Manifesto
Besides providing complete loan waiver to all farmers, the NCP will ensure that some part of the wages for farm labour will be provided from MNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) so as to reduce the cost of production.
The NCP, according to its manifesto, intends to bring out a white paper on demonetisation, which has drastically slowed down economic growth and impacted the GDP significantly.
The party claimed that demonetisation (scrapping of ₹500 and ₹1,000 banknotes in November-December 2016) had led to a loss of 1.80 crore jobs.
Emphasising that the disaster of demonetisation had hit MSMEs (micro, small and medium enterprises) the hardest, with most of them struggling to stay afloat, the NCP said it will provide special facilities that will revive and help these enterprises grow rapidly.
Further, financial assistance to MSMEs will be increased and their loans restructured.
In order to improve entrepreneurial skills and have a trained labour force, special training programmes in local colleges will be considered.
“An entrepreneur support system at every district will be created. Skill vouchers will be provided to young Indians that can be encashed either in government or private sector training institutes,” said the manifesto.
The Party will push for setting up separate boards for unorganised sector to provide them social security and assure them fair wages.
NCP wants to ensure 33 per cent reservation for women in Parliament. It plans to implement a 100-day guaranteed jobs for graduate youth in urban areas. The Party will also implement free education for girls from kindergarten to post-graduation.
Minorities
In order to boost education of every girl child from the minority communities, the manifesto envisages specific incentives to the families of girls who complete Grade 10, 12 and graduation. Further, a special programme will be designed to create hostels in small and large cities for minorities, especially girls, to promote their education.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.