UPA for rural development, doubles PMAGY fund

In a major boost to develop rural India, the UPA government has doubled the funding for Pradhanmantri Adarsh Gram Yojana (PMAGY) for the integrated development of scheduled-castes dominated villages in the country.

According to sources in the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment the gap filling funding has been enhanced from Rupees 10 lakh to 20 lakh per village.

Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee while presenting the Budget 2009-10 in the Lok Sabha had announced the PMAGY with Rupees 100 crore allocation. There are about 44,000 villages in which the population of scheduled castes is above 50 per cent. The yojana has been approved on a pilot basis in 1000 such villages.

Under this Scheme, each village would be able to avail gap funding of Rupees 10 lakh over and above the allocations under Rural Development and Poverty Alleviation Schemes. On successful implementation of the pilot phase, the PMAGY would be extended in coming years.

At meeting of the Central Steering-cum-Monitoring Committee under the Chairmanship of KM Acharya, Secretary, Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment, 1000 Scheduled Castes majority villages in five states - Assam(100 villages), Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu (225 villages each) have targetted.

The integrated development of these villages is to be primarily achieved through implementation of the existing schemes of Central and State Governments in a convergent manner and through Gap filling funding of Rupees 10 lakh. Those funds would be provided by the Central Government with expectation of matching grant from the State Government for meeting the special requirements of the villages which cannot be met from the existing schemes in the short-term. The gap filling funding now has been enhanced from Rupees 10 lakh to 20 lakh per village.
 
Till date, Rupees 101 crore has been released to 5 States under the scheme. The budget for the scheme during the current financial year is Rupees 100 crore and the same is likely to be released to the states by end of this Month.