The ruling National People's Party (NPP) has promised the creation of 5 lakh jobs over the next five years if it retains power in the state.

Releasing the party’s manifesto, called ‘people’s document’ in Jowai on Friday, Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma said the jobs will be created in tourism, agro-processing and digital sectors.

"The people's document underlines NPP's vision to create 5 lakh jobs and employment opportunities for the youth. A special focus on entrepreneurship, tourism, agro-processing and knowledge/digital sectors in both the urban and rural areas of the state has been laid down,” the party said in a statement.

“Skilling of youths has been planned through the creation of multi-sectoral skill parks, exposure trips and livelihood sectors,” it said.

The party said its primary focus would be on the “identification and utilisation” of the state’s sporting potential by providing world-class facilities at the grassroots level.

“The existing programmes in this area would be enhanced to include a larger pool of talents and increased support to them,” it added.

In addition, the NPP manifesto also envisioned the creation of 1,000 Chief Minister's Facilitation Centers to deliver government services to every village by engaging a cadre of Village Community Facilitators (VCFs) to deliver the services to the last mile.

“These cadres would be the single point of contact for the citizens with the government, providing a wide variety of services from PDS to grievance redressal and this service in itself would create thousands of jobs and ensure even the household from the remotest village of Meghalaya has access to government services,” it added.

The party also said it would continue its support to farmers of the state through flagship programmes, adding that 13,000 farmers have benefitted from the Mission Lakadong itself.

The party said it would build new roads and connect villages under the Chief Minister's Village Connectivity Scheme wherein timber bridges would be replaced with durable RCC/steel bridges.

The party claimed the government had constructed more roads in the past five years in rural areas than the past governments in the last 20 years.

The NPP said Chief Minister's Affordable Drug Centers have been planned to provide affordable medicines to the people.

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