S. A. Hemanth
Bengaluru, May 1: At last, the BJP seems to have taken note of the ground reality where disenchantment among the people is intense and widespread over absence of ‘meaningful and concrete’ pro-people schemes.
In its 48-page manifesto spread across 16 chapters that was released by party’s national President J. P. Nadda, the saffron party has come out with many welfare schemes, some of them looking like an answer to Congress’ schemes. For instance, BJP has come with “Atal ji canteen” in response to Congress’ Indira canteen.
While the Congress has promised 10 Kgs of Rice, the BJP, on its part, has promised 5 Kgs rice with additional millets and half a litre of milk per day to BPL card holders.
Catering to its ideological constituency, the BJP has promised coming out with Uniform Civil Code and promised three cylinders to each of the three Hindu festivals – Ugadi, Ganesh Chaturthi and Deepawali. The party has also come out with a plan to have “pilgrimage circuit” with fancy names – Kalyana circuit, Banavasi circuit, Parashurama circuit, Kaveri circuit and Ganagapura circuit. It has promised to allocate Rs 1500 crores for development of these circuits in order to make Karnataka a most favoured tourist destination.
Perhaps, rattled by the Congress party’s announcement of providing Rs 2000 to the women head of the family, the BJP has announced Rs 10,000 as deposit for SC/ST women under the Onake Obavva scheme.
Realising the importance of housing to the poor, the BJP has promised distribution of 10 lakh houses and residential sites.
In a reply to the Congress party’s Rs 3000 unemployment scheme, the BJP has promised generation of jobs by forging collaboration between the Industry and Educational Institutions through StartUps and MSMEs.
The saffron party has promised Rs 30,000 crore K – Agricultural Fund to establish micro cold storage facilities, agro processing units in all Gram Panchayats.
On the health front, the BJP has promised to increase the insurance coverage under Ayushman Bharat scheme to Rs 10 lakh per family for BPL Card holders and Rs 5 lakh per family for APL card holders.
Starting a new credit guarantee trust for MSMEs, plug and play environment for MSMEs, massive afforestation programme to increase forest cover and establishing industrial clusters exclusively for women with a revolving fund of Rs 500 crores are some of other promises made by the BJP in its manifesto.
EOM
