Currently, two of the Government of India’s (GoI) largest schemes focussed on reviving the rural economy have been the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) and the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN).
With food inflation hitting 14% in December 2019 and real rural wages declining for eight consecutive months (latest data available till October), rural India is among the worst hit by the current economic slowdown. Providing relief to this constituency will take more than just allocating money in the budget. This is because the two flagship rural relief programmes are caught in multiple structural problems. Currently, two of the Government of India’s (GoI) largest schemes focussed on reviving the rural economy have been the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) and the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN). Together, these schemes account for nearly 1% of the total GDP. While the former is still struggling to achieve its stated objective of providing employment on demand for 100 days, the latter seems to have lost momentum after the Lok Sabha elections.
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