The budget focuses on rural development with a moderate hike in allocation, but the government has downsized in a big way the importance of its flagship programme, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), on which it reportedly galloped to power in 2009.
For the scheme entitling jobs to below poverty line (BPL) households in rural areas, the allocation has been reduced by 17.5 per cent to only Rs. 33,000 crore in the next financial year from Rs. 40,000 crore in 2011-12.
The reduction comes against the backdrop of the poor performance of the scheme and demands by the Agriculture Ministry, which the Economic Survey released on Thursday echoed, for a moratorium during agriculture season on the ground that it deprived availability of labour.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has also revised the current year’s allocation to Rs. 31,000 crore, a tad higher than the release of just Rs. 24,722 crore till February-end, while the expenditure by the States stands at Rs. 24,106 crore. Only 4.09 crore households have been provided with jobs till mid-February, against the 5.49 crore households that availed jobs under the scheme in 2011-12.
Notwithstanding this cut, the allocation for various programmes that spearhead rural development has been increased to Rs. 98,900 crore from Rs. 91,301 crore in 2011-12 for a 6 per cent increase by Rs. 7,599 crore. This budgetary allocation is next only to the allocation to the Defence Ministry.
For more, click here