Mumbai: As Maharashtra is set to go into polling for the upcoming Vidhan Sabha elections, the Informed Voter Project dissected the actions taken and progress made by the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Maharashtra government towards the fulfilment of promises laid out in the 2019 election manifesto related to Agriculture, Health and Women and Child Development.
According to the analysis, the Mahayuti government broke 74% of agriculture promises, 82% of Women and Child Development promises and 38% of health promises.
Informed Voter Project is a non-profit institution that aims to inform the voters about the history of their potential representatives and the work carried out by them once they are elected into power. With a call for citizens to ‘Don’t Just Vote, Select’, the organisation publishes ‘Promise vs Performance Report Card’ which analyses the government’s work according to the promises made before coming into power through an election manifesto.
As the Vidhan Sabha elections have been announced in Maharashtra, Informed Voter Project released its second report card for the Mahayuti government’s performance in the agriculture, health and women and child development sectors, based on the promises made by the BJP in its 2019 election manifesto.
The analysis highlighted that 74% of the promises have a ‘Low’ or ‘Worse-than-Low’ performance. While no promise was entirely kept, 10 out of 15 promises scored less than 50%, one promise scored between 20% to 40% and four promises scored between 40% to 80%. Promises like ‘supplying electricity to farmers for 12 hours per day’ and ‘doubling farmers’ income’ were broken, the promise of ‘connecting all APMCs with e-NAM platform’ was less than half fulfilled and the promise of ‘soft loans and modern infrastructure for fish traders’ was half kept.
For Women and Child Development, it was concluded that 82% of the promises have a Low or Worse-than-Low performance. Seven out of 11 promises scored ‘very low’ with less than 20% and four promises scored ‘medium’ with a score between 20% to 60% while none of the promises were fulfilled completely.
Promises like ‘10% government procurement from companies with 50% women’, ‘tripling childcare facilities by 2022’, ‘additional courts for cases of violence against women’, and ‘setting up atleast one women’s hostel per district’ were broken. While the promise of ‘empowering women entrepreneurs and farmers’ was less than half-kept.
On the other hand, Health sector scored better than the rest with 13% promises fulfilled, 25% scoring medium-high, 25% scoring medium while 38% promises scored low or very low. However, only three out of seven promises were paid serious attention to. Promises like ‘health for all, within all reach’ and ‘15,000 modern healthcare centres’ were broken while the promise of ‘cataract-free Maharashtra in next two years’ was more than half-kept.
