Mumbai: The country’s economy is witnessing a downturn, but the state Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has ambitious plans to transform Maharashtra into a USD one trillion economy in the next five years by creating one crore jobs every year.
In addition to this, making the state drought-free and providing houses for all homeless people by 2022 are the major promises made by the party in its manifesto for the Vidhan Sabha polls.
BJP working president J.P. Nadda and chief minister Devendra Fadnavis released the party’s manifesto or ‘Sankalp Patra’ on Tuesday. “Drought, water and employment are the three pillars of this manifesto,” said Mr Nadda.
The other key promises in the manifesto are the formation of the Marathwada Water Grid by joining 11 dams, Rs 5 lakh crore investment in infrastructure, the introduction of preventive and curative healthcare, bringing workers under a social security net and a separate maintenance department for the permanent repair and maintenance of national and state highways through the chief minister’s Gram Sadak Yojana.
Making the parched region of Marathwada drought-free has been on the BJP’s agenda for some time.
The Rs 16,000 crore project has been given a prominent place in the manifesto. Mr Fadnavis said the government was committed to building a comprehensive water grid across the state’s parched areas to ensure flowing rainwater is collected and diverted to the drought-affected areas of Vidarbha and Marathwada.
This would include a diversion of over 167 TMC (thousand million cubic feet) water from the Konkan region, which gets released in the sea.
Speaking on the occasion, Mr Nadda praised Mr Fadnavis, saying he had changed the image of the state.
“Maharashtra was earlier known as the state ‘full of corruption’, but now it is known as the state ‘free of corruption’,” he said.
Later, Mr Fadnavis said Maharashtra alone generates “25 per cent” of the total jobs in the coutry. The Congress and the NCP have been blaming the BJP government for the “rising unemployment” and “economic downturn”. “Maharash-tra’s population ratio to India is around 9 to 10 per cent, but the job creation is some 25 per cent compared to the total jobs created at the national level,” the chief minister said.
The Vidhan Sabha polls will be held in the state on October 21 and counting of votes will take place on October 24.
