CONG-NCP POLL SOPS FOR LOCALS
The opposition alliance of the Congress, the Nationalist Congress Party and a few other smaller parties on Monday promised up to 80% reservation in jobs for locals in their joint manifesto for the October 21 assembly polls.
MUMBAI: Flagging unemployment as one of the major issues facing Maharashtra, the opposition alliance of the Congress, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and a few other smaller parties on Monday promised up to 80% reservation in jobs in industries for locals in their joint manifesto for the October 21 assembly polls.
The 51-page document called “Shapathnama” has also promised an unemployment allowance of ~5,000 to jobless youth and a blanket loan waiver for farmers.
The “sons of soil agenda”, especially in jobs, has been the central poll plank of the Shiv Sena, so far. Maharashtra already has a rule that 80% of jobs in industries must be kept aside for domiciled residents of the state but the Opposition has claimed that it has not been implemented on ground. The Andhra Pradesh government recently passed a bill to impose 75% quota for locals in industrial units.
“To tackle unemployment, we plan to reserve 80% jobs in industries for locals. This will be implemented by bringing a legislation and a separate policy to ensure it gets implemented on ground,’’ said Balasaheb Thorat, state Congress president, while releasing the poll manifesto on Monday.
State NCP chief Jayant Patil pointed out that recent government job advertisements were an indicator of rising unemployment in the state.
“For 32,000 vacancies, the state government has received 32 lakh applications. This reflects actual position of unemployment, the state is facing. To deal with the situation, we will provide unemployment allowance to the jobless youths,” he said.
The manifesto also stressed on the agriculture sector. “To make it a prestigious profession, certain measures are required to be taken. To start with, farm loans will be waived in the first four months of the government. Priority will be given to increase agricultural productivity and proper remuneration to farm produce,” says the manifesto.
It further promised to bring ‘Bhavantar Bhugtan Yojana’ for the farmers on the lines of the Madhya Pradesh government, which ensures the state government will pay farmers the difference between official Minimum Support Price (MSP) and the rate at which they sell their crops in the market. Paddy growers from eastern Vidarbha will get ~3000 per quintal MSP for their produce.
In the light of public outcry over cutting of trees for the Metro car shed at Aarey, the parties have declared to focus on environmentally sustainable development if comes to power. The manifesto also promised a zerotolerance policy on environment protection.