Shillong: The ruling National People’s Party (NPP) today released its People’s Document – Vision 2023-28 and assured to create 5 lakh jobs and employment opportunities for the youth if voted back to power in Meghalaya.
The election manifesto was released by the NPP National president Conrad K Sangma at a meeting held at Jowai in West Jaintia Hills district today.
The people’s document also highlighted the focus of the party to support farmers and villages.
It also includes a summary of the key achievements titled as ‘Promises Delivered’ and the story of making a better Meghalaya, while the vision details of taking Meghalaya from Better to Best.
Present on the occasion were Deputy Chief Minister and Pynursla MLA Prestone Tynsong, Cabinet Minister and Nartiang MLA Sniawbhalang Dhar, Raliang MLA Comingone Ymbon, Jowai MLA Wailadmiki Shylla, NPP’s East Shillong candidate Dr. Ampareen Lyngdoh among other top leaders of the party.
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While the document only lists key interventions, the National People’s Party has drafted a year-by-year detailed roadmap to realize the vision and not just mere promises for publicity purposes.
The NPP said its vision is inclusive, realistic and futuristic to address the needs of various sections of Meghalaya.
The document encapsulates “the idea that the party has achieved several milestones in the past five years in serving the citizens of the State that lays a strong foundation upon which the vision has been built to create a better society for all the citizens.”
The NPP said it calls this document as People’s Document as it lists out the detailed interventions targeted towards each and every citizen of Meghalaya – a roadmap of Better to Best Meghalaya.
The people’s document said that NPP’s vision is to create 5 lakh jobs and employment opportunities for the youth.
A special focus on entrepreneurship, tourism, agro-processing and knowledge or digital sectors in both the Urban and Rural areas of the state has been laid down. Skilling of youth has been planned through the creation of multi-sectoral skill parks, exposure trips and livelihood sectors.
The NPP also said it remains focused on entrepreneurship by creating PRIME hubs across all blocks and supporting entrepreneurs through the PRIME scheme. The NPP emphasizes on building upon its success of being the Best Startup State in India and continues creating a better support system to nurture the entrepreneurs, it further said.
The party has assured to continue to engage with the Government of India for the inclusion of Khasi and Garo languages in the 8th Schedule of the Constitution of India and for the implementation of the Inner Line Permit (ILP) in Meghalaya, resolutions of which had already been passed in the Assembly.
Stating that the NPP had taken steps towards the resolution of the long-standing border dispute between Meghalaya and Assam, the document said the party would also continue working towards arriving at a workable agreement on the Meghalaya-Assam border issue by engaging with all concerned stakeholders.
The party has also assured to protect the livelihoods of those engaged in the mining sector by promoting scientific and sustainable mining. It said that the government led by NPP had managed to get a favourable judgement from the Supreme Court upholding the rights of tribal people over land and minerals and that prospecting licenses were allotted to 17 applicants.
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The NPP further assured to maintain peace and harmony in the state of Meghalaya by ensuring there are increased investments to modernize police infrastructure, strengthen cyber security capabilities and set up female police stations in all districts.
The government had in the past five years created 4 new civil sub-divisions, 9 C&RD blocks, 3 new police stations, 8 new border outposts and 7 police outposts, it added.
The document said that the party is also committed to fast-track discussions with militant groups within the constitutional framework for workable solutions.
According to the party, groups have expressed willingness for unconditional dialogues with the Government.
Extending support to the youth, the party said that it would also focus on the identification and utilization of the abundant sporting potential of the state by providing world-class sports facilities at the grassroots level including stadiums, training, talent identification and scholarships. The existing programs in this area would be enhanced to include a larger pool of talents and increased support to them. The NPP’s vision in the sports sector is holistic, from grassroots infrastructure to supporting sporting talents and hosting of national-level sporting events successfully like the 2nd North-east Olympic Games, it further added.
Asserting the need to ensure government services to every village, the party said the vision also innovatively plans out creating 1,000 Chief Minister’s Facilitation Centers to deliver Government services to every village. The party also plans to engage a cadre of Village Community Facilitators (VCFs) to deliver the services to the last mile.
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These cadres would be the single point of contact for the citizens with the Government providing a wide variety of services starting from citizen services like PDS, Pension to grievance redressal. This itself would create thousands of jobs and ensure even the household from the remotest village of Meghalaya has access to Government services.
Assuring full support to the farmers, the party said it would continue its support to farmers of the State through flagship programs such as FOCUS and FOCUS+. The programs will be continued and expanded to cover all the producer households of the state irrespective of their area of residency. The vision lists key interventions across all areas of the agri-value chain, a plan that would enable the farmers of Meghalaya to produce more, transport easily and finally sell at the best prices.
The party’s vision is to continue its support through specific mission-mode projects and benefit all farmers by 2023-28. These interventions have already reaped great success for various farmers such as Lakadong where a whopping 13,000 farmers are now befitted, which was merely 1,000 five years back. The people’s document is a list of interventions, while a detailed year-by-year roadmap has been prepared to support the vision.
The NPP has further assured to connect every village with all-weather roads and RCC/Steel Bridge and said that it has chalked out a detailed village-by-village plan to connect Meghalaya through all-weather roads.
While it would continue emphasis through central schemes to build new roads and connect villages, it ideates a new scheme – “Chief Minister’s Village Connectivity Scheme” to connect the rest of the villages. The party plans to replace timber bridges in the State with more durable RCC or steel bridges. It is to be noted that during the last 5 years, KMs of rural roads constructed in Meghalaya have surpassed the total roads constructed by past Governments for the last 20 years.
Regarding the development of key infrastructures and facilities, the party said that the vision also lists interventions to take Meghalaya forward through several key infrastructure development projects. Improved air connectivity, internet to all villages, IT parks, water management and piped water to households are a few of the key areas.
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The party plans to establish economic growth centres and logistics hubs in different districts of the State in line with a new industrial policy regime, which will attract investors and industries thereby creating more livelihood opportunities.
Stating that the health sector in Meghalaya has witnessed a massive transformation, the NPP said new and upgraded health infrastructures, focused interventions to mother and child and health insurance schemes have been a great success during the last five years.
The party envisions continuing its success in this area, additionally, the new Chief Minister’s Affordable Drug Centers have been planned to provide affordable medicines for the people of Meghalaya.
Several existing schemes that have benefited the people would continue with more support and greater coverage, the NPP also said. Along with it, new schemes and policies would be taken up to enable Meghalaya to become one of the top 10 states in the country, it added.
NNN
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