The Bhutanese Leading the way.
During the 51st press meeting, upon asking the Prime Minister about how many pledges were fulfilled, he said there was no percentage to give. However, he said that the government’s job is to carry out the pledges, and it’s in our hands to compare and compute.
The Prime Minister (PM), Dr. Lotay Tshering, said, “Among the many achievements, the one is during the time of COVID-19 and how the government dealt with it, and you are now able to sit among your family members. This was not in our pledges.”
“One of the pledges we could not fulfil was free wifi. However, we have reduced data charges by fifty percent and made wifi available in every government agency and office,” he added.
The Prime Minister questioned, “Haven’t we fulfilled 99.8 percent of our pledges?”
The PM said that the government started off with a breastfeed allowance, acknowledging the importance of mothers and children’s health however, after much consultation, it was reaffirmed that much bigger advancement is needed. Therefore, the government came out with accelerated mother-and-child health care.
He said that it took them four long years to complete due to the policy, and since it is a policy, you need to suffice with the domestic revenue. Though domestic revenue was increasing, it had to be spent on COVID-19 prevention measures.
The PM said, “If you look back to the past after 15 years, you will realise the impact we have created and its impact on the structural layout.”
“Earlier, there was a question regarding doctors, and for doctors to come up, we needed a place to train them, and it will take 5 years to reach its fullest potential,” he said
The PM said that Bhutan is in need of lots of bridges, and recognising the importance of them they have established one bailey bridge manufacturing factory in Samtse.
The PM said, they talked about tax free first-family cars but had to drop the idea for now
The PM said that every school in the country has been ICTized, and every school-going child is now learning coding, followed by the eradication of the cutoff point for class ten students giving every child a fair chance.
He stressed that the government could not risk just fulfilling pledges.
At the end, the PM again apologised to the nation for not fulfilling certain pledges given the limited time they had.
