Some of the highlights of the Karnataka Janata Paksha’s manifesto for the May 5 Assembly elections are establishing an exclusive women’s cooperative bank with a corpus fund of Rs. 2,000 crore; extending the Bhagyalakshmi scheme to middle-class families by removing the income ceiling for beneficiaries; and making use of the State’s share of the Krishna and Cauvery waters.
Party president and former Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa, who unveiled the salient features of the manifesto that will be released in Bangalore on April 10, mentioned other features, including taking up massive tank-filling projects.
These projects will use the available waters of the Krishna and Cauvery to increase the groundwater-level and bringing more areas under irrigation, Mr. Yeddyurappa said.
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Addressing a press conference here on Saturday, Mr. Yeddyurappa said the tank-filling project taken up in Mysore, Bijapur and Tumkur during his tenure as Chief Minister was a huge success.
Mr. Yeddyurappa stated that another major promise was to find a permanent solution to the drinking water problems in more than 20,000 villages affected by fluoride and other harmful contaminations. All such affected villages would be provided regular drinking water through surface water sources, the former Chief Minister said.
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Sanitation
Party leader and former Minister Shobha Karandlaje said the manifesto would also contain a detailed programme to improve sanitation in villages, including constructing individual toilets in all the houses.
The KJP president, who declared himself as the chief ministerial candidate of the party, said another promise would be to effectively implement the recommendations of the D.M. Nanjundappa Committee report on regional imbalances and bring all the underdeveloped and backward taluks identified by the committee on a par with developed districts in the State.