Jowai, Feb 3: Amidst a large gathering in Jowai, the National People’s Party (NPP) National President Conrad K Sangma on Friday released the party’s election manifesto for the 2023 assembly elections called the “People’s Document – Vision 2023-28”. The document details the vision of the party for the people of Meghalaya for 2023-28, focusing on creating opportunities and employment for the youth, and support to farmers and villages. It also includes a summary of the key achievements titled as ‘Promises Delivered’ and the story of making a better Meghalaya, while the vision details of taking Meghalaya from better to Best.

NPP has shown its potential in the last 5 years. Our people first mission is bringing the change we have envisioned for Meghalaya. We urge the people to trust Meghalaya’s own National Party so that together we can achieve new milestones for our State. pic.twitter.com/DBGBsyt6y6

— Conrad K Sangma (@SangmaConrad) February 3, 2023

Present on the occasion were Deputy Chief Minister and Pynursla MLA Prestone Tynsong, Cabinet Minister and Nartiang MLA Sniawbhalang Dhar, Raliang MLA Comingone Ymbon, Jowai MLA Wailadmiki Shylla, NPP’s East Shillong candidate Dr. Ampareen Lyngdoh among other top leaders of the party.

NPP claims the ‘People’s Document’ is a brief overview of a detailed plan the party has crafted through interventions for all sections of the society of Meghalaya. The party also said it has drafted a year-by-year detailed roadmap to realize the vision and not just mere promises for publicity purposes.

“NPP’s vision is inclusive, realistic and futuristic to address need of various sections of Meghalaya,” it said adding that NPP calls this document as People’s Document as it lists out the detailed interventions targeted towards each and every citizen of Meghalaya – a roadmap of Better to Best Meghalaya.

Highlights of the manifesto

Creation of 5 lakh jobs:
NPP has promised to create 5 lakh jobs and employment opportunities for the youth. A special focus on entrepreneurship, tourism, agro-processing and knowledge/digital sectors in both the Urban and Rural areas of the state has been laid down. Skilling of youth has been planned through creation of multi-sectoral skill parks, exposure trips and livelihood sectors.

The party said it remains focused on entrepreneurship by creating PRIME hubs across all blocks and supporting entrepreneurs through the PRIME scheme. It said it will build upon its success of being the Best Startup State in India and continue creating better support system to nurture the entrepreneurs.

Support to Youth:
NPP said it would also focus on identification and utilization of the abundant sporting potential of the state by providing world class sports facilities at the grassroot level including stadiums, trainings, talent identification and scholarships. The existing programs in this area would be enhanced to include larger pool of talents and increased support to them.

NPP said its vision in sports sector is holistic, from grassroot infrastructure, to supporting sporting talents and hosting of national level sporting events successfully like 2nd North-east Olympic Games.

Govt services to every village:
NPP also plans on creating 1,000 Chief Minister’s Facilitation Centers to deliver Government services to every village. The party also plans to engage a cadre of Village Community Facilitators (VCFs) to deliver the services to the last mile. These cadres would be the single point of contact for the citizens with the Government providing wide variety of services starting from citizen services like PDS, Pension to grievance redressal. These itself would create thousands of jobs and ensure even the household from the remotest village of Meghalaya has access to Government services.

Support to Farmers:
The party has promised to continue its support to farmers of the State through flagship programs such as FOCUS and FOCUS+. The programs will be continued and expanded to cover all the producer households of the state, irrespective of their area of residency.

The manifesto lists key interventions across all areas of agri-value chain, a plan that would enable the farmers of Meghalaya to produce more, transport easily and finally sell at the best prices. The party’s vision is to continue its support through specific mission mode projects and benefit all farmers by 2023-28.

These interventions, NPP said, have already reaped great success to various farmers such as Lakadong where a whopping 13,000 farmers are now befitted, which was merely 1,000 five year back.

Connect every village with all-weather roads and RCC/Steel Bridges:
NPP has also chalked out a detailed village-by-village plan to connect Meghalaya through all-weather roads. While it would continue emphasis through central schemes to build new roads and connect villages, the party plans to launch a new scheme – “Chief Minister’s Village Connectivity Scheme”, to connect the rest of the villages.

The party plans to replace timber bridges in the State with more durable RCC/steel bridges.
It is to be noted that during the last 5 years, KMs of rural roads constructed in Meghalaya has surpassed the total roads constructed by past Governments for the last 20 years.

Development of key infrastructures and facilities:
The manifesto also lists interventions to take Meghalaya forward through several key infrastructure development projects. Improved air connectivity, internet to all villages, IT park, water management and piped water to households are few of the key areas.
NPP further plans to establish economic growth centers and logistics hubs in different districts of the State in line with a new industrial policy regime, which will attract investors and industries thereby creating more livelihood opportunities.

Augment Health Sector:
Health sector in Meghalaya has witnessed a massive transformation. New and upgraded health infrastructures, focused interventions to mother and child and health insurance schemes have been a great success during the last five years.

NPP envisions to continue its success in this area, additionally new Chief Minister’s Affordable Drug Centers have been planned to provide affordable medicines for the people of Meghalaya.

NPP said several existing schemes that have benefitted the people would continue with more support and greater coverage. Along with it, new schemes and policies would be taken up to enable Meghalaya to become one among the top 10 states in the country.