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TDP manifesto has nothing new to offer

Shireen in Hyderabad

The Telugu Desam Party's manifesto for the ensuing Lok Sabha and assembly election in Andhra Pradesh has nothing spectacular to offer.

Besides reiterating the party's commitment to the schemes and programmes launched by the present government, it promises to expedite these programmes or scale up the targets.

Releasing the manifesto in Hyderabad on Friday night, Chief Minister and Telugu Desam Party president N Chandrababu Naidu said the party would seek to achieve total eradication of poverty in the next five years through a 'poverty eradication mission'.

The mission, patterned after the technology missions (launched by the Rajiv Gandhi government at the Centre in the mid-1980s) will benefit at least four million families living below the poverty line, the manifesto says.

It will focus on the implementation of the current schemes for various sections of society, such as mundadugu (for dalits), chaitanyam (for tribals), aadarana (for the backward classes) and roshni (for the minorities).

These schemes will be allocated adequate funds in keeping with the enhanced targets.

"The poverty eradication mission will be meant for an individual's overall development by promoting economic uplift, healthcare, improvement of literacy level, upgradation of technical skills, etc. The administration will identify the beneficiaries and provide them with the requisite loans, subsidies or employment opportunities," Naidu explained.

The manifesto also promises to create an additional power generation capacity of 10,000 MW in the next five years, provide irrigation facilities to an additional 2.5 million acres, and increase the agricultural growth rate to 6.1 per cent and the industrial growth rate to 9.7 per cent per annum.

Construction of 3.5 million houses in the next five years, provision of house plots to all the landless poor within three years, construction of five million latrines in rural areas, and the continuance and extension of the Deepam scheme for the supply of subsidised cooking gas connections to all poor families in the rural and urban areas are also envisaged,

The subsidised rice scheme, which already entails an annual subsidy of Rs 11 billion from the state exchequer, will be continued.

The government will earmark Rs 12 billion to Rs 15 billion for the development of the youth in the next five years. Similarly, the manifesto envisages achieving 83 per cent literacy in the next five years, compared to 43 per cent now.

The TDP manifesto also promises to encourage self-help groups for income generation and employment creation. "Our manifesto is a practical document. We want to harness every inch of land and every drop of water for the poor," Naidu asserted.

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