Rs 3k cr for poverty scheme during 11th Plan: Prasad

from the Financial Express

The government is expected to spend more than Rs 3 lakh crore during the 11th plan (2007-12) on a series of anti-poverty programmes, rural development minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh on Tuesday said.

“We have already spend close to Rs 50,000 crore during 2007-08 and during the current fiscal we are sure the allocation from union government will be more than Rs 60,000 crore for various anti-poverty programme,” Singh told reporters after announcing the expansion of National Rural Employment Gurantee Act (NREGA) across the country.

He said that against an allocation of Rs 76000 crore during the 10 th plan, the ministry has allocated Rs 1,14,000 crore for all the anti-poverty programme. On the implementation of NREGA, Singh said that government has already allotted Rs 8,600 crore during 2006-2007 when only 200 districts were under NREGA.

The expenditure under NREGA during 2007-8 rose to Rs 12,500 crore as 130 more districts were brought under the programme which guarantee 100 days manual work to each family in the rural belt. Singh also formally announced expansion of NREGA to rest of the 273 districts in the country. The government has allocated Rs 16,000 crore for NREGA during the current fiscal.

He said that works related to water conservation and harvesting have been given top priority under NREGA. On Monday, the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) in an assessment had stated that money under NREGA had gone to road construction works instead of water conservation and harvesting.

He said that more than 48% of works under NREGA are related to water conservation. “Under NREGA 15.61 lakh projects have been taken up. Of these 7.56 lakh works are related to water conservation, which is 48.44 per cent of the total,” he said. Singh pointed out that due to the focus of NREGA on water conservation projects, the number of water bodies in villages of states like Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and Assam have increased.