Union Minister for Tribal Affairs, Jual Oram on Sunday said that budgetary allocation for schemes under the tribal welfare Ministry has increased by 73 % compared to the last budget.

Oram was addressing a press conference in Agartala to highlight the thrust points laid in the Union Budget-2024-25 presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. He said that around Rs. 13,000 crore has been provided in the budget for implementation of tribal welfare schemes across the country. He said that allocation of Rs 6,399 crore has been made in the budget for the construction of Eklavya Model Residential Schools across the country, with a target to set up 728 such schools for the tribal students to study from class 6-12 free of cost.

He said that Budget 2024 categorically laid emphasis on four classes development - welfare of poor, empowering women, skilling and employment opportunities for the youth and to ensure that the farmers’ welfare, so that their income could be doubled. He said that this budget has proposed a ‘Prime Minister’s package of five schemes and initiatives’ for employment, skilling and other opportunities for 4.1 crore youth over a 5-year period with a central outlay of  Rs.2 lakh crore.

Talking about the progress of North East and Tripura in development priorities of the Centre, Oram said Uttar Purva Transformative Industrialization Scheme-2024 is in force; will be operational for next ten years, and will focus on development of industries & employment generation in the region at a cost of Rs 10,037 crore. He added that 14 projects under Northeast special infrastructure development scheme have been approved for Tripura with a cost of 458 crore rupees. The budget, he said, allocated more than Rs. 3 lakh crore to schemes benefitting women and girls to promote women-led development.

He said the budget has made provision for boosting the MSME sector, adding that the Government is going to introduce a New Credit Guarantee Scheme for facilitating term loans to MSMEs for purchase of Machinery & Equipment without collateral or third-party guarantee.

Also, the limit of MUDRA loans will be increased to Rs. 20 lakh from the current Rs. 10 lakh under the ‘Tarun’ category of PM MUDRA Yojana, which will further broaden the employment avenues.

The Minister said that the budgetary provision of ₹ 1.52 lakh crore has been made for agriculture and allied sector, adding that  one crore farmers across the country will be initiated into natural farming supported by certification and branding and 10,000 need-based bio-input resource centres will be established. 

He said the Pradhan Mantri Janjati Unnat Gram Abhiyan Scheme will cover 63,000 villages in the country and it will lay thrust on augmenting the infrastructure such as road connectivity, power supply, medical facility among others.

He said Rs. 2.6 lakh crore budgetary provision has been made for Rural Development, adding that Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana will cover 25,000 rural habitations across the country. 

The Minister said a roadmap has been designed as to how the villages in the country will be when the nation celebrates hundredth year of independence in 2047. 

Regarding development of Northeast region, Mr. Oram said, the Northeast region received record budgetary allocation for Railway infrastructure projects. The allocation has been proposed at Rs 10,376 crores, which is five times more than the average annual budget outlay of Rs. 2122 crore for the region during 2009-14.