Major schemes for the development of villages proved to be very helpful in providing employment opportunities to the workers migrating from the cities during the corona period.
The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGA), in addition to providing employment to the daily wage labourers in the villages, proved to be crucial in the development of basic infrastructure in the villages, which was called an opportunity in disaster and under the self-sufficient India package.
However, the Union Budget 2021 has made a 35 per cent lesser allocation (than 2020-21 Revised Estimate) of 1,10,568 crore allocation towards the MGNREGA in its Budget estimate (BE) 2021-22.
In Budget 2021 (Budget estimate), the expenditure stands at Rs 72,034 crore.
The budgetary allocation of MNREGA was Rs 61,500 crore in 2020-21, but under the self-sufficient package in the corona era, an additional allocation of Rs 40,000 crore was made for the scheme.
Expenditure profile:
https://www.indiabudget.gov.in/doc/eb/vol1.pdf
Meanwhile, the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday said the allocation to rural infrastructure development has been increased to Rs 40,000 crore for the next fiscal from Rs 30,000 crore in FY21.
Presenting the Union Budget for 2021-22, she also said the operation green scheme will cover 22 more perishable commodities while announcing the development of five major fishing hubs.
Sitharaman further said 1,000 more mandis will be integrated with the electronic national market and the agriculture infrastructure fund would be made available to APMCs to augment infrastructure facilities.
The agriculture infrastructure fund outlay will be increased to Rs 40,000 crore, and micro-irrigation corpus will be doubled to Rs 10,000 crore, she added.
(With inputs from agencies)
