Decoding Sankalp Patra: will Modi 2.0 be able to keep the promises made in the election manifesto?

Modi 2.0: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) under the supreme leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Party President Amit Shah have swept the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections by a super-sized victory, claiming the throne for a second term. The party alone marked victory on 303 out of the total 543 Lok Sabha seats. With support from allies in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), the coalition claimed 354 seats, making it a legendary win. Meanwhile, the arithmetic of the Indian National Congress (INC), the SP-BSP mahagatbandhan and other opposition parties could not hold ground.  

The Saffron party leaders and Prime Minister Modi gave due credits of their massive win to their manifesto, or the ‘Sankalp Patra’, which they had crafted on the theme of ‘Sankalpit Bharat – Shashakt Bharat’, claiming to fulfil the aspirations of 130 crore Indians. 

The micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) contribute significantly to the economic and social development of the country by fostering entrepreneurship and generating massive employment opportunities. To entice the MSME sector, the BJP gave the MSME sector and the agriculture sector weightage in their ‘Sankalp Patra’. Thereby, it is expected that the politically-sensitive small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and the agriculture sector will be the top priorities of the new Narendra Modi-led government in the next five years. Now, it is time for the BJP, along with other NDA parties, to keep the promises made in the ‘Sankalp Patra’.  

Sectoral-wise highlights of the BJP Manifesto 

MSME sector 

1. Establish the National Traders Welfare Board for MSEs.
2. Protect the interests of small traders. To do so, the BJP had promised a pension scheme for small traders.
3. Create a scheme to give registered merchants credit cards, on the lines of Kisan credit card. 
4. Focus on better technology access and up-gradation to establish 150 centres, 100 innovation zones and 500 incubators by 2024.
5. Launch a new scheme to encourage entrepreneurship among the youth, which would provide collateral-free credit up to ₹ 50 lakhs to entrepreneurs.
6. Continue promotion and encouragement to startups through the creation of a Seed Startup Fund of ₹ 20,000 crores.
7. Provide accident insurance of ₹ 10 lakhs to all traders registered under GST. In fact, the National Policy for Retail Trade was also promised to be formed for the growth of retail businesses.
8. Boost employment generation in the north-eastern states by setting up a new Entrepreneurial Northeast scheme that would provide financial support to the MSMEs of those states

Agriculture sector 

1. Double farmers’ income by 2022 in their manifesto.
2. Enable creation of about 10,000 new Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs).
3. Provide adequate market avenues for the realisation of MSP through National Agriculture Market (e-NAM), GrAMs and Pradhan Mantri AASHA Yojana, which would work towards ensuring maximum income support for farmers under the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana. 
4. Launch a pension scheme for small and marginal farmers to ensure social security after 60 years of age.
5. Complete all irrigation projects under the Pradhan Mantri KrishiSinchayiYojana. 
6. Provide short-term new agriculture loans up to ₹ 1 lakh at zero per cent interest rate for one to five years on the condition of prompt repayment of the principal amount.
7. Increase cropped area under irrigation.
8. Provide all-weather connectivity for every village.
9. Assist the maximum number of fishermen by ensuring the availability of storage and other infrastructure under a new Matsya Sampada Yojana. 
10. Provide for 100 per cent disposal of liquid waste and reuse of wastewater.
11. Digitise all land records.

Infrastructure sector 

1. Ensure a pucca house to every family. 
2. Provide LPG gas cylinder connections to all poor rural households.
3. Ensure 100% electrification of all households.
4. Provide every citizen access to a bank account.
5. Provide a toilet in every household.
6. Ensure access to safe and potable drinking water for all households.
7. Expedite completion of Phase-1 of Bharatmala Project. 
8. Double the length of national highways.
9. Achieve 100 per cent waste collection under the Swachh Bharat Mission to achieve ODF+ and ODF++ in cities and villages. 
10. Ensure open-defecation free (ODF) status for all villages and cities.
11. Achieve 175 GW of renewable energy capacity.
12. Achieve 10 per cent blending of ethanol in petrol.
13. Connect every Gram Panchayat with high-speed optical-fibre networks. 
14. Supply piped cooking gas in major Tier 1 and 2 cities.
15. Form a new Ministry of Water unifying the water management functions. 
16. Increase the number of operational airports to 150 for better air connectivity.
17. Increase port capacity to 2,500 MTPA.

Health sector 

1. Establish 1.5 lakh health and wellness centres under Ayushman Bharat. 
2. Start setting up 75 new medical colleges/postgraduate medical colleges.
3. Target provisioning of tele-medicine and diagnostic laboratory facilities at all health and wellness centres to ensure quality primary medical care to the poor at the doorstep. 
4. Work towards increasing the number of childcare facilities threefold.
5. Ensure drastic reduction in cases of tuberculosis.
6. Increase the doctor-population ratio to 1:1400.
7. Under POSHAN Abhiyaan, reduce malnutrition levels as well as accelerate the rate of reduction of mal-nourishment.

Railways  

1. Ensure conversion of all viable rail tracks to broad gauge by 2022.
2. Work towards ensuring electrification of all railway tracks by 2022.
3. Start developing smart railway stations across India.
4. Work towards equipping all main railway stations with Wi-Fi facility.
5. Complete the dedicated freight corridor project by 2022.

Youth and education

1. Cover all secondary schools under Operation Digital Board.
2. Enable investment of ₹ 1 lakh crore in higher education through Revitalising of Infrastructure and Systems in Education. 
3. Work towards increasing the number of seats in premier management institutes.
4. Increase the number of seats in premier engineering institutes.
5. Increase the number of seats in premier law institutes.
6. Establish at least one Atal Tinkering Lab in every block.
7. Under a new Entrepreneurial Northeast scheme, provide financial support to MSMEs and for employment generation in the north-eastern states.

Policies 

1. Further improve India’s rank in Ease of Doing Business ratings.
2. Work towards improving GDP share from the manufacturing sector.
3. Work towards doubling total exports.
4. Establish National Traders’ Welfare Board and create a National Policy for Retail Trade for the growth of retail business.
5. Work towards creating a single-window compliance and dispute resolution mechanism for MSMEs.
6. Ensure reduced tax rates, higher tax collection and greater compliance. 
7. Ensuring a stable taxation regime for better compliance of law and ease of doing business.
8. Amend the Companies Act to impose civil liability for technical and procedural defaults of a minor nature, thus unclogging majority of cases from courts.

Governance  

1. Ensure availability of banking services within five kilometres of every individual. 
2. Achieve complete digitisation and modernisation of courts. 
3. Promote and increase digital transactions in the country.
4. Ensure end-to-end digitisation of government processes like the creation of e-invoice. 
5. Enable digital delivery of government services.
6. Substantially reduce the current levels of air pollution.
7. Work towards eliminating crop residue burning to reduce air pollution.
8. Put an Indian in space in an Indian spacecraft as part of the Gaganyaan mission. 

Women  

1. Work towards increasing female workforce participation rate.
2. Ensure justice for muslim women by enacting the law against triple talaq. 

Inclusive growth  

1. Ensure full immunisation coverage of children. 
2. Make all government buildings accessible.
3. Ensure completion of six Tribal Freedom Fighters Museums.
4. Work towards developing the Panchteerth circuit. 
5. Expand the Pradhan Mantri Shram Yogi Maandhan scheme to cover all small shopkeepers. 
6. Ensure comprehensive social security coverage for all unorganised labours including insurance, pension and so on. 

Cultural heritage  

1. Achieve the goal of Clean Ganga by 2022.
2. Complete the development of all projects under Swadesh Darshan, PRASAD and HRIDAY schemes.
3. Work towards digitisation of collections in all national museums in the country.