Finance Minister Arun Jaitley emphasized on the need to cut subsidy leakages. To achieve it, the Government is committed to the process of rationalizing subsidies. He said the direct transfer of benefits, started mostly in scholarship schemes, will be further expanded with a view to increasing the number of beneficiaries from the present one crore to 10.3 crore.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley emphasized on the need to cut subsidy leakages. To achieve it, the Government is committed to the process of rationalizing subsidies. He said the direct transfer of benefits, started mostly in scholarship schemes, will be further expanded with a view to increasing the number of beneficiaries from the present one crore to 10.3 crore.
An allocation of Rs 5,300 crore to support micro- irrigation, watershed development and the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana has been made in the Budget. In order to support the agriculture sector with the help of effective agriculture credit with a focus on small and marginal farmers, the Finance Minister proposed to allocate Rs 25,000 crore to the corpus of Rural Infrastructure Development fund (RIDF) set up in NABARD. Rs 15,000 crore has been alloted for Long Term Rural Credit Fund and Rs 45,000 crore for Short Term Cooperative Rural Credit Refinance Fund. Jaitley has also alloted Rs 15,000 crore for Short Term RRB Refinance Fund.
Jaitley added that the Government has set up an ambitious target of Rs 8.5 lakh crore of agricultural credit and proposes to create a Micro Units Development Refinance Agency (MUDRA) Bank, with a corpus of Rs 20,000 crore. Credit guarantee corpus of Rs 3,000 crore will also be created which will refinance Micro-Finance Institutions through a Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana.
Announcing new insurance schemes, he said Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana will cover accidental death risk of Rs 2 lakh for a premium of just Rs 12 per year and the Atal Pension Yojana will provide a defined pension, depending on the contribution.
The Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana will cover both natural and accidental death risk of Rs 2 lakh on a premium of Rs 330 per year for the age group 18-50.
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