Two mega initiatives of Ujjwala Yojana and Saubhagya Yojana- have transformed the lives of women in every rural family and dramatically improved their ease of living. This was stated by the Union Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs, Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman, while presenting the Union Budget 2019-20 in Parliament today.
Household access to clean cooking gas has seen an unprecedented expansion, through provision of more than 7 crore LPG connections. All villages, and almost 100% households across the country have been provided with electricity. A combination of efficient implementation and enthusiastic adoption has significantly improved access to energy for rural households, the Finance Minister added.
By 2022, the 75th year of India’s independence, every rural family, except those who are unwilling to take the connection will have an electricity and a clean cooking facility, informed Finance Minister..
The Government has supported and encouraged women entrepreneurship through various schemes such as MUDRA, Stand up India and the Self Help Group (SHG) movement. In order to further encourage women enterprise, the budget has a proposal to expand the Women SHG interest subvention programme to all districts. Every verified woman SHG member having a Jan Dhan Bank Account will be allowed an overdraft of Rs.5,000. One woman in every SHG will also be eligible for a loan of up to Rs. 1 lakh under the MUDRA Scheme. Seventy per cent of beneficiaries under MUDRA scheme are women.
There is a proposal to increase budgetary allocation for ICDS to Rs.27,584 crore in 2019-20 from Rs.23,357 crore in 2018-19.
