The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) will order review of all Jalayagnam projects by a sitting High Court judge if its government comes to power. A whopping Rs. 60,000 crore has been spent, mostly on contractors, and yet very little ayacut is created. Similarly, Polavaram project would be reviewed for least submergence alternatives.
These are among the measures proposed by the AAP in its Andhra Pradesh manifesto released here on Saturday. The manifesto doesn’t make big promises but talks of decentralised governance and an end to corruption. It seeks to strike a balance between individual rights and larger interests of society.
“Manifestos of other parties are aimed at coming to power while the AAP manifesto is primarily about empowering people to take decisions that affect their lives. We do not sell false dreams to people but work with them to realise the best within the constraints”, remarked Ramkrishna Raju, convenor, AAP Andhra Pradesh.
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He told presspersons that people were vexed with the dishonest political parties and their fraudulent promises. The expenditure being incurred by the candidates was the highest in the state and most of it was black money. “It is now time to change all this”, Mr. Raju said.
The AAP manifesto proposes clean, transparent and accountable government. It calls for strengthening public heath and education infrastructure, revival of agriculture and rural economy to ensure income security, creation of ecosystem for entrepreneurial and industrial growth, social justice and gender equality and emphasises justice to minorities and marginalised groups.
“One need not have doubts about implementation of these plans. Once the AAP government is in place there will be transformation in the administrative machinery and it will be tuned to carry out the plans”, said Ramchandraiah, who drafted the manifesto.
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The manifesto promises gainful employment for youth. There will be no contractualisation of jobs. Posts that require work to be done throughout the year contractual employment will not be allowed. Jobs will be created through promotion of honest enterprise. This would be done by streamlining the system of excessive regulations and licenses.
The AAP manifesto offers free and compulsory education to all from KG to Intermediate and free education in graduation and PG for socially and economically backward sections. In the energy sector, it is proposed to harness renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, biomass to meet more than 50 per cent of the electricity needs by 2030 and more than 75 per cent by 2050.
AAP promises to review faulty power purchase agreements which had put a heavy burden on electricity consumers. For agriculture free power will be supplied for seven hours during day through solar and local generation. In the transport sector, AAP plans to strengthen RTC and make it viable. It plans to reduce the ticket rates by cutting down life tax on registration and by lowering the sales tax on diesel used by RTC.