Himachal Congress released its election manifesto for Himachal Pradesh assembly polls. The manifesto was released by Senior Congress leaders Virbhadra Singh, Anand Sharma, Vidya Stokes and Delhi Chief Minister in Shimla among others.
Congress leaders promised to give transparent and corruption free governance to the Himachal Pradesh. Congress has focus on the youths, who constitute nearly 50 percent of the electorate in the state, the Congress featured unemployment allowance and several freebies in its manifesto for the Himachal Pradesh assembly polls, due for Nov 4.
While highlighting various points of the election manifesto, Congress leader and Commerce Minister Anand Sharma said an unemployment allowance of Rs.1,000 per month will be given to all 10+2 passouts and graduates whose total family income is less than Rs.200,000 a year. He added that free transport facilities for students, free medicines to the poor, new industry policy, establishing new universities and making Himachal Pradesh an attractive destination are the highlights of the Congress Manifesto.
A skill development corporation with an outlay of Rs.500 crore will be set up to tackle unemployment. The Congress has also promised that a new scheme, Rajiv Gandhi Digital Student Yojana, will be implemented. In this scheme, 10,000 toppers of Classes 10 and 12 will be provided free laptops by the government. Students securing first position in Class 8 in every school will be provided special learning laptops.
Congress also said that if come to power, party will set up dedicated knowledge center for for journalism and mass communication and nano technology centres. Congress also offers an education loan at the rate of four percent for students to pursue higher and technical education.
The Congress also promised a new industrial policy to attract new investors in State and to boost up the food processing industry; Congress promised to prepared a state-level vision document after consulting the central government. It also promised to build an airport of international standards near Shimla to attract more tourists.
To woo fruit growers, the Congress said private investments would be encouraged to create infrastructure in integrated cold chains, grading and packaging, and agro and food processing. Party also promised to increase the custom duty on the import of apple by at least three times the present value and efforts will be made to include apples in the special category.
Congress also declared to investigate the scams of the present BJP government and announced zero tolerance on corruption.
