From jobs to injecting life into MSME, what the people want in the Congress manifesto

Bengaluru, Jan 21: Gearing up for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, the Congress has already begun preparations on his manifesto. Taking the lead, Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha), Rajeev Gowda who is part of the Congress Manifesto Committee interacted with scores of citizens here to take their views and opinions on what the manifesto should contain.

Several eminent personalities were present at a jam packed event on Sunday, where suggestions were given on what the manifesto should contain. The event also witnessed many from the public share their opinions.

Former union minister, P Chidambaram who is also part of the manifesto committee was also present at the event, where he heard the opinion of the people. At the start of the event, Gowda explained what the event was about and said that the exercise was part of a consultation process with stake holders to prepare the manifesto. He said that the views of the people would be taken for the manifesto and the same would be prepared in another month.

Chidambaram said that the idea was to listen to the voices of the people. We want a manifesto to reflect what the people want to read in the manifesto. What kind of a country do you want? Many things are wrong in the country and we need to correct it. Tell us how you want the country to be in the next five years, he said before throwing the stage open to the public.

What the people want:

There were many suggestions that we're offered. Primary among those was suggestions on how to improve the agricultural sector and also the economic condition of the nation. Some said that loan waivers were not really helping the farmers.

There was a lot of emphasis on the plight of the MSMEs. Further suggestions on the need to decongest cities and how to improve infrastructure were given. One of the participants spoke about the need to create more Tier-II cities. This would reduce the burden on Tier-I cities, the participant said.

Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, the chairperson and managing director of Bicon said that jobs were the biggest challenge in the country today. MSMEs have big job creating potential and the nation is in the need of a vibrant start up economy, she said. She also emphasised on the need of giving more attention to science and technology and felt more investments need to go this way.

She further spoke about the need give medical education a boost. It is a great disservice, we are doing to this sector by ignoring it, she said. We have talent, but are not utilising it. We produce only 12,000 specialists a year and that is a poor number she said.

She also said that the manifesto must take note of the GST on drugs and hospitals. These need to be exempted from GST, she suggested.

There were others who suggested that the new government must do more on the data front. Data is the new oil and data protection must be addressed some speakers said.
There were also question marks raised on initiatives such as Make in India and Skill India.

Skill India is not functioning properly and life needs to be injected into it, one speaker suggested. Further the toll that demonetisation took on nation was also spoken about. The manifesto must address those issues primarily, several speakers said. A majority felt that the manifesto must address both the rural and agrarian distress.

Speeches don't soothe:

The event witnessed one interesting speaker. Raghunath, the head of the All India Manufacturers Organisation had come all the way from Chennai to Bengaluru to make his suggestions.

He said that 17 million MSMEs and traders are in pain today. Speeches don't soothe, actions do, he said. He said that schemes like Make in India sound good, but they are all hollow schemes. These need to be redone and life ought to be injected into such schemes.

He further suggested that the country needs uniformity. We need One India One Price. We need One India, One Tax, One India One Power Tariff and One India, One Petrol Price. He wound up by saying that manifestos can be written, but the need of the hour is execution.