Budget 2022-23: Inclusive Development

In Context

The budget outlines different priorities for taking along all sections on the path of development.

Focus Sectors 

• Here, special attention is being paid to Agriculture & allied sectors and MSMEs to ensure that they are not left behind on the road to development.
  • Agriculture: The focus is on providing support to the farmers through direct procurement under the Public Distribution System (PDS) and preventing leakage and delays through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) into farmers’ bank accounts. 

• Use of Technology: Also, it is planned to make Agriculture more remunerative by the use of technology like ‘Kisan Drones’ for crop assessment, digitization of land records and spraying insecticides. 
• Sustainability of Agriculture: Apart from that, the budget promises to improve the sustainability of Agriculture by promoting Chemical-free Natural Farming and encourages the States to update the Agriculture syllabi frequently to include natural, zero-budget and organic farming.
• Increase in Investment: A fund is being planned under the aegis of NABARD for encouraging the growth of Startups in the field of Agriculture.
• Irrigation: Indian farmers suffer due to their dependence on monsoons. To alleviate their sufferings, irrigation is sought to be provided under River Linking Projects like Ken-Betwa Link Project. It will have the added benefit of drinking water supply as well as generation of Hydro-power.

• Micro, Small, and Medium (MSME) Industries: MSMEs have suffered due to COVID-induced lockdowns in the last couple of years. Therefore, the government seeks to support the sector through various schemes:
  • Infusion of Technology: The government envisages interlinking of different ICT projects like Udyam portal, e-Shram, NCS and ASEEM. The overall objective is to bring more workers into the formal sectors.
  • Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme (ECLGS): The scheme has been a lifeline for the MSME sector during the COVID times, helping almost 1.3 Crore units. Understanding its importance, the scheme will be extended for another year till March 2023 with a total cover of Rs 5 Lakh Crore and a special focus on hospitality and related units.
  • Raising and Accelerating MSME Performance (RAMP) Programme: The scheme would be helpful for the MSME sector and will have an outlay of Rs 6,000 Crore over the next 5 years.
• Education and Skill Development: The budget spells out different schemes for harnessing the demographic dividend:

• National Skill Qualification Framework (NSQF): It seeks to align the industry requirements with the syllabus being taught in the higher education and skilling institutes so that the dichotomy between unemployment and non-availability of skilled labour can be resolved.
• Digital Ecosystem for Skilling and Livelihood (DESH-Stack) e-portal: It has the dual purpose of skilling and seeking employment for the citizens.
• Expansion of e-Vidya: To leverage online education during the times of the pandemic, the government plans to expand e-Vidya to 200 channels so as to facilitate education delivery in regional languages too. This will be particularly beneficial for the people residing in rural areas as well as people belonging to SC and ST communities.
• Digital University: It will provide world-class education through a personalized education experience via cutting-edge technology to the students across the country.

• Health Infrastructure: The importance of health infrastructure cannot be overstated in the era of the pandemic. The government has come up with different schemes to enhance access to health institutions:

• National Digital Health Ecosystem: It provides information about doctors and hospitals, apart from providing digital identity for individual health records.
• National Tele Mental Health Programme: The programme will help in identifying and resolving mental issues prevalent in people. NIMHANS will act as the nodal centre for the programme, along with IIIT-Bangalore providing the technical support.

• Other Social Infrastructure: The government seeks to provide better housing facilities and potable drinking water to all through PM Awas Yojana and Har Ghar, Nal se Jal schemes respectively. Direct delivery of drinking water has been accomplished in 8.7 Crore households. Also, the government plans to build 80 lakh houses in the next year for Economically Weaker Sections.

• Vulnerable Sections and Regions:
  • Women: The government has come up with different schemes for women empowerment viz
    • Mission Shakti: It is a self-help mission that seeks to empower women by organizing them into Self-Help Groups and facilitating them to take up various socio-economic activities.
    • Mission Vatsalya: The aim of the scheme is to provide better child protection and child welfare services.
    • Saksham Anganwadi: The scheme seeks to upgrade 2 Lakh existing Anganwadis by providing better infrastructure and audio-visual aids for early child development, besides being powered by clean energy.
    • Poshan 2.0: It seeks to achieve better health outcomes by promoting better nutrition, outreach and delivery of services. The aim of the scheme is to enhance the performance of India on various health-related indicators like child stunting, wasting and underweight.
  • North East: PM Development Initiative for North East Region (PM-DevINE) has been launched for the development of infrastructure and social development projects with an initial allocation of Rs 1500 Crore. The Scheme will be implemented through the North-East Council.
  • Aspirational Districts: The programme was launched to help build infrastructure and target an increase in social development indicators in the 112 most backward districts of the country. The focus will be on improving the most backward districts within the scheme in the areas of health, nutrition, financial inclusion and basic infrastructure.
  • Rural Areas: Through the Vibrant Villages Programme, the government wants to extend the benefits of development to the border villages situated on the Northern Frontier of the country, by building infrastructure for faster development in the area. At the same time, the vast network of Post Offices will be used to provide avenues for small savings, especially to the rural people.
  • Digital Financial Infrastructure: Apart from Post Offices, the Government seeks to expand financial inclusion through setting up 75 Digital Banking Units (DBUs) as well as providing a boost to the digital payment ecosystem.

Source: Indiagov.in