Holding out the promise of creating jobs on a large scale, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has said that it would focus on promoting construction, textiles, manufacturing and infrastructure sectors if it comes back to power after the Lok Sabha election.
The party’s economic agenda was spelled out at the meeting of its National Council in Nagpur. The economic resolution adopted at the meeting said that being labour-intensive, these sectors could help meet the ever-rising demand for jobs.
“Rapid employment generation has to be the overriding performance matrix for the economy given that we have over 150 million young people joining the workforce in the next five years,” the resolution said.
The party wants to draw from its experience of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government which had created 60 million jobs during 1999-2004.
The BJP, while promising to continue the reforms in the financial sector, said that “the reforms would be done in a manner which will not expose it to undue domestic or global risks.’’
“There is a need to dramatically improve financial inclusion, meet the targets of priority sector lending (particularly infrastructure), mobilise private capital and to have world-class regulation. Additionally, the entire financial system might need to be recapitalized aggressively to support growth,’’ the resolution said.
The Party has also offered to reform the taxation system, abolish the central sales tax and provide easy loans to the small traders.
Also Read
Accusing the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government of pursuing appeasement policies towards the minorities, the economic resolution says that the BJP would ''strive for establishing equitable growth model that would ensure economic security and job and basic needs of all the citizens.
''Every Indian should have adequate nutrition, health care, sanitation, the fundamental right to water, access to education and credit.’’ The document says. The party, which passed a separate resolution on agriculture, has pledged to make each village connected to a fair-weather road.
On the social sector, the BJP has laid emphasis on the quality education and health care. ''Both these sectors can benefit from public-private partnerships which can help in improving quality, providing specialised services, and developing new technologies,’’ the resolution says,
Taking note of the projections that in next 20 years 45 percent people in India would be living in cities, the BJP has promised to take the rejuvenation of the cities as a priority area. It says that for meeting the challenges of rapid urbanization, local accountability needs to be strengthened and sensible public-private partnerships developed to deliver urban services.
The party says that it would also develop new cities on the lines of Chhattisgarh and Gujarat.