SHILLONG:
The Voice of the People Party (VPP) released 34 pledges for the upcoming elections at Sweet Home Guest House in Motinagar on February 21.
The 34 pledges cover areas such as education, health, agriculture, tourism, power, transport and communication, sports and youth affairs, employment, mining, infrastructure, satellite towns, inclusion of local languages in Eighth schedule and many others.
In the education sector, the party promised to improve the quality and service delivery of government schools and colleges; for health, they promised affordable and quality health care to the people, and promotion of traditional medicines among others.
In the Agriculture sector, the party promised to provide minimum support price to farmers, build regulated markets, and establish tissue culture Lab with hybrid power for large scale multiplication of varieties of extinct species, establish seed banks, and others.
Coming to tourism, the party laid emphasis on scaling GDP through tourism promotion, and encourage public-private partnerships (PPP) for capital infusion into the infrastructure development requirements of the tourism sector.
Stating that Meghalaya was once a state with surplus power, the party pledged to revive the MeECL through organsisational restructuring and professional staffing it to curb financial losses and maximize power generation, 100% metering, increase the generation capacity of hydro-electricity in the state, promote the generation of other renewable resources such as solar energy, and others.
Coming to Sports and Youth Affairs, the party assured to establish a sports academy, build sporting infrastructures, establish a music academy, among others.
The Party also committed to creating employment opportunities for the youth of the state by developing the agro-based industries, micro-managing the tourism sector, filling all the vacant posts in the government sector, creating more job opportunities in the public transport system, promoting entrepreneurial/business loan to the youth to start/expand their business/entrepreneurs, and promote entrepreneurial/business loan to the youth to start/expand their business/ entrepreneurs.
To ensure water supply to everyone, the party assured that the citizens are supplied with safe and potable water, judiciously implement the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) for providing water supply, completing the New Shillong Water Supply Project, and others.
As for the mining sector, the party said that mining and transportation of coal and other minerals should be carried out strictly in accordance with the law in order to prevent leakage of revenue and destruction of the environment, and promised to stop all ‘illegal’ activities of the present MDA Government.
Among other things, the party also promised to look into the border issue (review the border MoU), check law and order, remove corruption, urge the centre to include Khasi and Garo languages in the Eighth Schedule, decongest the Shillong city by building satellite towns, and others.