The Congress party has focussed on farmers and employees of the state government among other sections in its manifesto for the upcoming assembly election in Telangana in a bid to wrest power from the Telangana Rashtra Samithi.

The 116-page manifesto will be formally released by former Congress president and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi at the public rally to be held at Medchal on the outskirts of Hyderabad on Friday.

Former deputy chief minister and Pradesh Congress Committee’s manifesto committee chairperson Damodar Raja Narasimha said the manifesto would highlight 36 major promises to different sections of people.

Waiver of all crop loans up to Rs 2 lakh in one spell, filling up one lakh government jobs within a year and an increase of retirement age of state government employees are some of the promises made by the party in its manifesto.

They also include reimbursement of interest on loans taken from cooperative societies, financial assistance of Rs 5,000 per acre to each farmer twice a year towards agricultural investment, provision of minimum support price to 17 different produce, payment of allowance of Rs 3,000 per month to all those without a job and declaration of a calendar for recruitments through public service commission.

The Congress also promised a payment of Rs 10 lakh to the families of those who had lost their lives during the second phase of the struggle for a separate statehood and pension to their eligible family members.

The grand old party will also earmark 20% of the state budget to the education sector, implement a scheme to reimburse tuition fee to poor students and provide an assistance of Rs 5 lakh to eligible households towards housing and Rs 6 lakh to those from Scheduled Caste (SC) and Schedule Tribe (ST).

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It also promised to increase the retirement age of employees from 58 to 60 years, restoration of the old pension scheme in place of the contributory pension scheme and granting of weekly-offs to all police personnel in the state.

The Congress has forged a grand alliance ‘People’s Front, or Maha Kootami, with the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), Telangana Jana Samithi (TJS) and Communist Party of India (CPI) to take on K Chandrashekhar Rao’s TRS in the December 7 elections to the 119-member assembly. Counting of votes will take place on December 11.

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First Published: Nov 23, 2018 10:30 IST