-Down to Earth
The Centre’s decision to reduce Panchayati Raj Ministry’s budget and transfer its schemes to states has left the ministry bewildered about its job and caught states unprepared for devolution of power
IS IT Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s initiative to devolve power to states and allow them to design their development programmes according to their priorities, or to make irrelevant a ministry that was created under the regime of the previous United Progressive Alliance government?
This question is bewildering many after Finance Minister ArunJaitely, in his budget presentation, slashed the plan outlay of the Union Ministry of Panchayati Raj (MoPR) to a meagre Rs 94 crore from Rs 7,000 crore allocated last fiscal. The budget allocated to the ministry this time is even lesser than what it had received in the first budget in 2005-06. The Centre has also transferred one of the ministry’s flagship schemes—Backward Regions Grants Funds (BRGF)—to the state, and drastically reduced the funds of the other, called the Rajiv Gandhi Panchayat Sashaktikaran Abhiyan (RGPSA), to Rs 60 crore from Rs 1,006 crore allocated last year.
Please click here to read more.