FM's PMAGY plan to uplift SC community

KOLKATA: Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee has reached out to scheduled castes by announcing Pradhan Mantri Adarsh Gram Yojana (PMAGY) while presenting his fourth full blown budget on Monday. The all-new scheme will pave the way for direct central involvement in the economic uplift of the SC community.

In the first year, the scheme will cover 1,000 villages on a pilot basis with a Rs 100 crore budgetary allocation. There are nearly 44,000 villages where scheduled castes account for over 50% of their population. Each village will enjoy gap funding of Rs 10 lakh over and above allocations made under various other rural development and poverty alleviation schemes.

Asked on the mode of funds transfer under the scheme, an upbeat Union minister of state for rural development Sisir Adhikari said: "Options were being examined on whether the fund would be directly sent to zilla parishads or to district administration authorities. The process of identifying 1,000 villages will be done in a few months."

The Economic Survey for 2008-09 has already noted that central expenditure in social services and rural development has risen consistently over the years. Share of central government expenses on social services including rural development in total expenditure (plan and non-plan) has increased from 11.23% in 2002-03 to 19.44% in 2008-09 (RE).

If anything, the launch of this brand new central initiative for the scheduled castes is slated to deliver more mileage to the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre.