Meghalaya Assembly election 2023: NPP promises 5 lakh jobs if it retains power

Meghalaya's ruling National People's Party (NPP) has pledged to create five lakh jobs in the coming five years if re-elected in the Meghalaya assembly election 2023. Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma on Friday in Jowai announced the release of the party's manifesto and dubbed it the "people's document".

CM Sangma said that jobs will be created in the tourism, agro-processing, and digital industries. "The people's document highlights NPP's ambition to generate 5 lakh jobs and chances for employment for young people. In both the urban and rural sections of the state, a strong emphasis has been put down on entrepreneurship, tourism, agro-processing, and knowledge/digital industries," the party stated in a statement.

The party said its primary focus would be on the “identification and utilisation” of the state’s sporting potential by providing world-class facilities at the grassroots level.

“The existing programmes in this area would be enhanced to include a larger pool of talents and increased support to them,” it added.

The NPP manifesto also called for the setting up of 1,000 Chief Minister's Facilitation Centers to provide government services to each village, each of which would employ a team of Village Community Facilitators (VCFs) to deliver the services to the last mile.

This service alone would generate thousands of jobs and guarantee that even the household from the farthest village in Meghalaya has access to government services, it was added. "These cadres would be the single point of contact for the citizens with the government, providing a wide variety of services from PDS to grievance redressal."

The party added that 13,000 farmers have benefited directly from Mission Lakadong and that it will continue to support state farmers through its flagship programmes.

The party said it would build new roads and connect villages under the Chief Minister's Village Connectivity Scheme wherein timber bridges would be replaced with durable RCC/steel bridges.

The party claimed the government had constructed more roads in the past five years in rural areas than the past governments in the last 20 years.

The NPP said Chief Minister's Affordable Drug Centers have been planned to provide affordable medicines to the people.