HYDERABAD: Dial Your Village, a non-profit think-tank being run by Telangana NRIs, has released a ‘people’s manifesto’ at Somajiguda Press Club on Wednesday, with an aim at showcasing the real needs of the people to political parties in view of the Assembly elections to be held in 2023.
The manifesto, which covers the primary areas of importance like education, health, and agriculture among others, aims to change the status quo of contemporary electoral politics which, according to the organisation, have been making the people dependent on freebies and also resulting in wasteful expenditure.
In order to address issues of unemployment and lack of skills among the graduates, the manifesto proposes to make internships compulsory in higher educational institutes, roping-in companies by giving them incentives, and making an autonomous institution responsible for facilitating and monitoring the process.
The manifesto suggests establishing micro-industry clusters at Mandal-level, and encouraging the rural youth to gain employment in these clusters, which the experts suggest, should manufacture customised products specific to such clusters, preferably agri-based products.
Skill dept task force
It also suggested that a skill development task force be established to visit every high school and plan the careers of the students by empowering them, and also a rural youth commission to conduct motivational and awareness programmes in the villages.
The most significant suggestion to make farming profitable was to establish the minimum support price, by taking into account the input cost, adding the interest on the input cost, compensation for soil usage/deterioration, labour and management cost of the farmer, insurance of the farmer’s family, any loss due to crop damage or fall in prices, and adding 50 per cent on all these costs combined to arrive at the minimum support price (MSP).
The manifesto suggests the establishment of agricultural knowledge extension centres in all the villages, and also an autonomous body with a set budget, to lay special emphasis on crops like cotton, turmeric, chilli and vegetables.
Encouraging youth to go for farming at the ‘satellite centres’ of agricultural colleges by offering various courses, encouraging the cultivation of millets through ‘millets mission,’ and establishing of ‘health and nutrition centres’ in the villages by regularising and utilising the services of ASHA workers was suggested.
Budget for health, education
Creating ‘biomedical engineer’ posts in all teaching medical hospitals to repair defunct medical equipment and establishing of customer service and social audit system in all government healthcare facilities operated by an independent body was also suggested.
It also suggested increasing the learning outcomes among the schoolchildren, capacity building of teachers and making education officials accountable was stressed, in addition to a quarterly assessment of students and quarterly evaluation of teachers in all government schools by an independent body. The manifesto has also suggested doubling the budget for health and education.
Dial Your village, which released a similar manifesto before the 2018 Assembly elections, taking inputs from former bureaucrats, prominent journalists, professors and others before drafting this people’s manifesto.