IANS/Chennai
The opposition All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam yesterday exceeded the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam party’s promises to the voters in a bid to win the April 13 Tamil Nadu assembly election.AIADMK chief J Jayalalitha has promised freebies ranging from free laptops to students, fans, grinders, mixers, rice, housing plot, cash assistance for students, free water and many other things, outdoing the DMK. Her promises were contained in the party’s much-waited manifesto, which she released while filing her nomination papers for election from the Srirangam constituency, 330km from Chennai. “Ours is a growth-oriented manifesto and we are going to increase productivity of milk, cotton, rice, and industry,” she told reporters after releasing the manifesto in Tiruchirapalli, about 335km from here.For the student community, Jayalalitha has promised free laptops at senior school and college level, and cash assistance of Rs1,000-Rs5,000 to students up to Class 12 of all schools to reduce school drop-out rates.The DMK has promised free laptops to first-year students of professional colleges.To attract women voters, Jayalalitha promised a free fan, grinder and mixer. She said her government would increase maternity leave to six months and give a cash allowance of Rs12,000. She also promised increase in loan assistance for self-help groups to Rs1mn, of which Rs250,000 will be a subsidy.The DMK has promised a free grinder or a mixer and the loan assistance of Rs400,000 for self-help groups.The AIADMK chief also promised gold for poor women getting married. For women who have completed diploma education the marriage assistance will be increased to Rs50,000.She also promised 20kg free rice monthly and 20 litres of water daily. The DMK has promised 35kg free rice monthly.For the agriculture sector, the AIADMK has promised appropriate steps for ushering in the second green and white (milk) revolution. Jayalalitha also said her party would hike the procurement price for sugarcane to Rs2,500 per tonne. She said action would be taken for doubling of cotton production and to double the income of cotton farmers. The party also promised to encourage organic farming.Jayalalitha said the AIADMK government would distribute 60,000 cows free in 6,000 villages to increase milk production. For BPL families, she has promised four free goats.For the fishing community, the AIADMK has promised an increase in cash assistance during non-fishing season, setting up of fish processing parks, and sea food export processing zone.Jayalalitha has promised loan assistance for educated youth for starting business, and also 25 percent reservation of government orders for the new entrepreneurs.For the senior citizens, the AIADMK boss promises free bus passes for inter and intra-state travel. The monthly assistance for senior citizens, destitute women and others would be increased to Rs1,000.She also promised extension of freebies to Sri Lankan refugees in the state.Jayalalitha also promised to nationalise the cable television business in the state while protecting the service providers. She also promised recovery of land “forcibly taken over” by the family of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi and DMK ministers.Asked about the funds for the schemes she said: “You will see when its happens; we have explained that in our manifesto.”According to her, the DMK government has left the state in a debt of over Rs100,000 crore and it is going to be a big task to bring the state out of the debt burden.