Party president Y S Jaganmohan Reddy focused on galvanizing activity in Seemandhra and making it a world-class state.
Balancing welfare and development equally, building a new state with opportunities galore, and welfare schemes that touch every section of the society, besides providing clean and transparent governance, are the focal points of the YSR Congress Party manifesto.
"The manifesto is a compilation of the promises I have made during my mass contact programmes, and the development initiatives are aimed at retaining the local talent, generating economic and employment opportunities by massive industrialization, and bringing about radical changes in the education, health, farming, service and social sectors," party president Y S Jaganmohan Reddy said while releasing the manifesto at his Lotus Pond Camp office on Sunday.
Talking on the issue of development, he said, "We will ensure completion of the following in a time-bound manner:
1. State-of-the-art, eco-friendly, world class capital city with all modern facilities, connectivity and social infrastructure
2. About 20 faculty-based super speciality hospitals in the capital city for integration with super speciality hospitals at the district level
3. A university, a super speciality hospital with a medical college, an airport, agro-processing zones with facilities for grading, processing and packaging in each district
4. Rapid rail and road connectivity from the new capital to Hyderabad
5. NTPC-BHEL Mannavaram project
6. Petrochemical complex by IOC/HPCL
7. Integrated Steel Plant in YSR District
8. Visakhapatnam-Chennai Industrial Corridor
9. Anantapur-Krishnapatnam Industrial Corridor
10. Petroleum, Chemicals and Petrochemicals Investment Region (PCPIR)
11. One IT Investment Region (ITIR) each in Coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema
12. Upgradation of the existing Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada and Tirupati airports to international standards
13. A new railway zone
14. Metro Rail facility in Vishakhapatnam, and Vijayawada-Guntur-Tenali Metropolitan Urban Development Authority
15. Duggirajapatnam port project
16. Machilipatnam and VANPIC port projects
17. 800MW Krishnapatnam thermal power plant stage 2
18. 800MW VTPS stage 5
19. 960MW Polavaram hydro power plant
20. 1600MW Vodarevu mega power plant stage 1
21. Polavaram and other irrigation projects like Uttarandhra, Sujala Sravathi, Handri-Niva, Galeru-Nagari and Veligonda
22. Revamping of drainage systems in Krishna, Godavari and Penna river basins
23. 10 lakh weaker section houses per annum
24. Large numbers of universities, specialized research institutions and national institutions
"In addition, the proposal to appoint 10 Mahila police from each village will create more than 2 lakh jobs.
"It is clear that the residuary state is going to experience unprecedented activity ? a huge construction boom, and thereby huge spending on infrastructure. This means extraordinary potential for economic growth in the residuary state, and a huge multiplier effect. These projects require large quantities of cement and steel besides a high demand for workers, thus creating lakhs of jobs for our youth. This will push up the production of steel and cement, in turn creating huge demand for mining of limestone and iron ore, leading to a huge push to the transportation sector since goods need to be moved from mines to production units and from production units to consumer centers.
"There will thus be an unprecedented boom for the cement, steel, transportation, mining and construction sectors, in turn creating lakhs of jobs for our engineers, IT professionals and blue-collar employees.
"We promise to create an absolutely hassle-free and corruption-free investment environment in the State."
In addition, Jagan said that he had the benefit of having personally visited thousands of poor houses during his mass contact programs, and personally saw the plight and the sub-human lives that of a large number of poor people. He was compelled by his conscience to do something to ameliorate their problems and improve their quality of life, and so included a plethora of welfare measures in the manifesto, several of which were a fortification of various measures initiated by late YSR. (INN)