The total expenditure on the MGNREGA programme, as per the revised estimates from 2025-26, was Rs 88,000 crore, while initially, a sum of Rs 86,000 crore was allocated.
The Rural Development Ministry has been allocated Rs 1.88 lakh crore in the Union Budget for 2025-26, around 5.75 per cent more than the allocation in the previous budget.
Enterprising women business correspondents, known as BC Sakhis, have facilitated transactions worth Rs 27,000 crore in Uttar Pradesh, earning Rs 75 crore in commission over the past four and a half years. BC Sakhis, appointed under the nationwide women empowerment programme, are members of self-help groups (SHGs) who are trained and certified to provide banking and financial services in rural areas.
The government, they said, will launch a mega drive, Viksit Bharat Sankalp Yatra, across all 2.7 lakh panchayats in the country to reach out to beneficiaries and enrol them.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday said the National Rural Livelihood Mission has achieved remarkable success by mobilising rural women into 1 lakh SHGs (self help groups).
The deposit facility for the women and girls will be for a period of two years with a rate of interest of 7.5 per cent, Sitharaman announced.
In the three decades since reservation of seats for women in panchayati raj institutions was introduced, the country saw women dismantling gender barriers to take the lead in the political field at the grassroots level and excel in it.
The prime minister will be part of the launch of several development initiatives on his birthday.
The Centre has allocated Rs 73,000 crore to the rural employment guarantee programme Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act for the next fiscal 2021-22, substantially lower than the actual expenditure of Rs 1.11 lakh crore in the current fiscal which included an additional Rs 40,000 crore for the scheme given by the government in the wake of the pandemic's impact on the economy.
The Kudumbasree, which was the first pioneering effort by the government of Kerala to promote women self-help groups, is all set to become a model for the National Rural Livelihoods mission. The project will be considered as a model for several states with a mission to bring changes in the fortunes of many women.
After the infrastructure sector, the public-private partnership model will be extended to rural job generation as well.
Faulting previous governments for not taking adequate measures to economically empower women in the country, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday said his government was constantly creating an environment in which women self-help groups can connect villages with prosperity as he released Rs 1,625 crore as capitalisation support fund to over four lakh such groups. In a virtual interaction with the women self-help groups (SHGs) under the "Aatmanirbhar Narishakti se Samvad" (dialogue with self-reliant women) initiative, Modi said in a changing India, opportunities are increasing for women to move forward. The movement of woman SHGs has intensified in the last 6-7 years with over 70 lakh of them working across the country, a figure over three times more than earlier, he said, adding over eight crore women are connected with these groups.
Indian billionaires saw their combined fortunes more than double during the COVID-19 pandemic, and their count shot up by 39 per cent to 142, while the wealth of the ten richest is enough to fund school and higher education of children in the country for 25 years, a new study showed on Monday. In its annual inequality survey released on the first day of the World Economic Forum's online Davos Agenda summit, Oxfam India further said that an additional one per cent tax on the richest 10 per cent can provide the country with nearly 17.7 lakh extra oxygen cylinders, while a similar wealth tax on the 98 richest billionaire families would finance Ayushman Bharat, the world's largest health insurance scheme, for more than seven years. The COVID-19 pandemic saw a huge rush for oxygen cylinders and insurance claims during the second wave last year.
Rural outlay may go up 23% to reduce pains of demonetisation
Additional infrastructure for dining rooms in each of the school has been recommended.
'From March 2020 to November 2021, the combined wealth of the billionaires of this country has doubled.'
Talking about the Tablighi Jamaat congregation, Agarwal said, "If the Tablighi Jamaat incident had not taken place and we compare the rate of doubling -- that is in how many days the cases have doubled, we will see that currently it is 4.1 days (including Jamaat cases) and if the incident had not taken place and additional cases had not come then the doubling rate would have been 7.4 days."
But the measures, particularly in agriculture, may not be enough to revive the sector and double the farm income, says S Mahendra Dev.
Economy to grow by 7.2-7.5 per cent in second half of current fiscal, says FM.
A programme that endeavours to graduate the poorest people could have seminal implications for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government.
Describing north-east as the "gateway" to south-east asia, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said his government has been pro-actively pursuing the 'Act-East Policy'
The savings would be better spent and might actually reach the poor, says Rahul Khullar.
'The Opposition has no option but to make it an 'All versus One' fight to even think about winning.'
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