How These 3 Ministries With Pet Projects Of PM Modi Were Allotted More Funds In Budget 2024-25
Addressing unemployment, skilling, and other opportunities for 20 lakh youth over a period of five years is a focus of PM Modi in his third term, said Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday. (PTI Photo)
The Jal Shakti Ministry, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy and Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship which run flagship ‘Har Ghar Jal’, PM Surya Ghar Muft Bijli Yojana and Skill India programmes have seen a jump in the budgetary allocation
The ministries leading Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pet projects have seen a significant increase in the fund allocation in the Union Budget 2024-25. With the ‘Har Ghar Jal’ project under the Jal Shakti Ministry, solar power under the New and Renewable Energy Ministry, upskilling of 20 lakh youths under the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman has ensured that these ministries have a fund inflow.
The Jal Shakti Ministry under which the government has provided around 11 crore 75 lakh tap water connections to rural households in the last five years alone has been a dream project of PM Modi. Only 3 crore 23 lakh rural households had tap water connections when the Jal Jeevan Mission was launched in August 2019 but now over 77% of rural households in the country have water connections.
Accelerating the pace of this flagship scheme, the budget for this ministry has been increased in this budget. The ministry’s total budget for 2024-25 was pegged at Rs 98,713 crore while it was Rs 96,549 crore last fiscal.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set an ambitious target for renewable energy in India aiming to triple renewable capacity by 2030. He has stressed a particular focus on harvesting solar energy by installing one crore rooftop solar panels. The Modi government calls it ‘PM Surya Ghar Muft Bijli Yojana’. In an interview to Moneycontrol this year, the Prime Minister said, “I want three things. One, every household’s power bill should be zero; second, we should sell surplus electricity and earn money; and third, I want to be self-reliant in the energy sector as the era of electric vehicles will come.”
No wonder that the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy’s importance shot up. Keeping that in mind, otherwise a non-important ministry too has seen a budget allocation increase by Sitharaman in this budget. A total budgetary estimate is pegged at Rs 19,100 crore while last year the revised estimates came at Rs 7,848 crore. In fact, last year, the shares of renewable energy sector defied the market gravity and rallied up to 8%. This year, the ministry gets a higher allocation.
Another pet project of Modi since 2014 has been Skill India. In fact, one of the five packages Sitharaman announced in this budget to tackle unemployment has been empowering youths with the right skill sets.
Addressing unemployment, skilling, and other opportunities for 20 lakh youth over a period of five years is a focus of PM Modi in his third term, said Sitharaman. To make them job-ready, the ministry must also have enough funds. Hence, the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship received a total budget allocation of Rs 4,520 crore this year as compared Rs 3,517 crore last year.
