Congress party made election pledges on Tuesday to halve unemployment in five years.
Releasing its manifesto for a staggered general election that starts on April 11, Congress highlighted job creation, tackling farm distress and empowerment of women among its top priorities.
Party president Rahul Gandhi said Congress would expand an existing jobs programme to guarantee 150 days of work a year to rural households, up from 100 days.
“The main issues in the country today are unemployment and farmer distress,” said Gandhi, releasing the manifesto. “The economy is jammed, and everyone agrees that India’s economy is stuck, so that needs to be restarted.”
Congress also promised to simplify a goods and services tax, quickly fill 2.2 million government jobs nationwide, create 1 million more on rural and urban development panels, and reward businesses for employment generation.
“Over a five-year period, I do think we can bring unemployment down to 3 percent to 4 percent,” Praveen Chakravarty, a party official who analyses data, told Reuters.
“We can certainly more than halve the unemployment number in a five-year period.”
Gandhi said Congress had won voters’ hearts with last week’s plan to hand 72,000 rupees ($1,041) a year to India’s poorest, a promise the BJP has dismissed as a bluff and some economists have called fiscally irresponsible.
