A recent analysis by the Informed Voter Project reveals that the Bharatiya Janata Party’s pledges in its 2019 manifesto recorded dismal implementation rates. The initiative graded 42% of commitments in the women and child development sector as ‘very low performance,’ also noting significant shortcomings in the health, employment and education sectors.
By Our Correspondent
Mumbai, May 12: From ensuring the welfare of widows of defence personnel killed in action to increasing childcare facilities threefold in order to promote better participation of women in India’s workforce, major promises on women and children made by the Bharatiya Janata Party in its 2019 manifesto recorded very poor levels of implementation. As much as 42% of manifesto assurances related to the women and child development sector were graded as having ‘very low performance’.
Similarly, 25% of manifesto’s education related assurances made under the ruling party’s 2019 manifesto were graded as having ‘very low’ performance; while 27% of promises related to the health & family welfare sector and 25% of assurances related to the labour and employment sector saw very-low performance.
These were the findings of a six-month exercise by the Informed Voter Project civil society initiative to analyse the promises made by the BJP in 2019 against the government’s performance, using data on government websites, answers by ministries to questions posed by members of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, parliamentary committee reports, Press Information Bureau-issued statements, newspapers and news websites, etc.
“There were many well-intentioned and well-named schemes with their genesis in these manifesto promises, but the tangible outcomes have been strictly average,” said Vivek Gilani, an Ashoka fellow and founding-trustee of the Informed Voter Project.
The IVP has released three reports since April. Its first report said that 89% of agriculture-related promises and 77% of environment-related manifesto promises showed ‘medium’ or ‘worse-than-medium’ performance. The Informed Voter Project has released until now a detailed analysis of 97 manifesto promises pertaining to agriculture, environment, labour, human resource development, women and child development, public grievances & pensions, and health and family welfare.
On a key promise to ensure greater participation of women in the workforce, the manifesto announced a “creche programme” for parents in the unorganised sector. Daycare for children aged 6 months through 6 years is provided through the ‘Palna’ programme of nationwide Anganwadi Centres. While a total of 17,000 Anganwadi-cum-Crèches (AWCC) were to be set up in the 15th Finance Commission cycle, only 5631 AWCCs are approved to date. While the government of India announced a target of trebling the number of creches by the year 2022 to 24,054 creches, the total number of functional creches in the country as of 2023-24 is 2,249; a huge shortage of 90.7%.
In the health sector, a major promise was to eliminate tuberculosis (TB) from India by 2025. India accounts for 26.4% of the global burden of TB cases. It was only in 2022 that the government launched a special mission to eliminate TB, called the TB Mukt Bharat Abhiyan. The incidence rate of TB in India shows a 16% decline from 237 per 100,000 population in 2015 to 199 per 100,000 population in 2022. The IVP report gave this promise a score of 16%, with nearly 28 lakh people in India still bearing the burden of TB.
For the welfare of widows of defence personnel killed in action, the manifesto promised a dedicated programme to generate employment, provide skill training and strengthen social security mechanisms. There was “nearly no progress” on this, the IVP assessment found. Additionally, there was “even a complete reversal of benefits provided to veer-naris for certain schemes”. Various recommendations were made to the government with regard to this manifesto promise—the 41st report of the Standing Committee on Defence (2022-23) suggested proper registration of these “veer-naris” to build a database; increased ex-gratia compensation by Rs 10 lakh; milk booths/kiosks as a livelihood option and an 8% reservation in distributorship of oil products. The ex-gratia recommendations were only referred to the Central Pay Commission, while no progress was made on the suggestions regarding livelihood for these women.
A promise to enable reservation of 33% seats in Parliament & state assemblies for women was taken up and the law enacted, but its implementation postponed to after the completion of the Census and delimitation exercises.
On the subject of human resource development, the BJP’s manifesto in 2019 promised a ‘Study in India’ programme to promote Indian universities and higher educational institutions as an attractive option for foreign students. Data showed, however, that international students studying in India actually reduced from 47,427 in 2018-19 to 40,431 in 2023, a 15% decrease.
The BJP also promised to promote excellence in higher education by motivating top institutions to break into the world top-500 ranked colleges. Since 2019, however, only nine institutions received the ‘institute of eminence’ status.
In its previous report, the IVP found that the BJP’s much-vaunted promise on establishing 50,000 new startups by 2024, whose ostensible outcome was a major overachievement with 1,17,254 recognised start-ups roistered by 31 December 2023, researchers’ investigations into the Startup-India Portal (https://www.startupindia.gov.in/) revealed major “peculiarities” that the IVP said warranted further journalistic investigation. Most companies listed on the portal had no listed email address, physical address, or phone numbers; many had email addresses listed as XXXXXX@gmail.com and phone numbers of 00000000; the directory also listed 871 mentors for the 1.27 lakh start-ups—one mentor ostensibly mentoring 146 start-ups simultaneously. Of about 100 randomly selected companies that IVP investigated in mid-February, almost 85 had been registered within the previous week, indicating hasty registrations without due diligence.
The IVP conducted its research and analysis through research assistants from academic institutions in India, trained social science researchers and with the guidance of academic partners including Mumbai University’s Journalism and Political Science Departments. The IVP’s institutional partners include (past and present): Arappor Iyakkam, Association for Democratic Reforms, AGNI, Praja, Jagrut Nagrik Manch, UN Youthopia Program, and JaagoRe (Janaagraha).
Click on the following link to read full reports:
1. Agriculture and Environment Promises Report
2. Labour, Health and Public Grievances, Pensions Promises Report
3. Education and Women & Child Development Promises Report
Republishing guidelines
We believe in the free flow of information and so publish under a Creative Commons — Attribution/No derivatives license. This means you can republish our articles online or in print for free, provided you follow these guidelines:
For print and online
1. You can’t edit our material, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style. If you do wish to make material edits, you will need to run them by the author for approval prior to publication. Authors can be contacted at vgilani@mumbaivotes.com
2. You have to credit authors (MumbaiVotes.com & the Informed Voter Project), ideally in the byline.
You have to add a link back to either our home page (mumbaivotes.com) or the article URL. Our preference is a credit at the top of the article.