Tamil Nadu hopes to make much of the enhanced allocation of funds in the Union Budget under a couple of schemes in the agriculture and rural development sectors.
In her Budget speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced an increase in the allocation to the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF) from ₹30,000 crore to ₹40,000 crore, besides doubling the corpus of the Micro Irrigation Fund (MIF) to ₹10,000 crore.
During the pre-budget consultations in mid-January, Deputy Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam, who holds the Finance portfolio, had called for an increase in the allocation for several schemes, including the RIDF.
According to the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development’s State Focus Paper 2021-22 for Tamil Nadu, village panchayat and panchayat union roads to a length of about 7,985 km and 317 bridges had been taken up in the last 9 years for construction at a cost of ₹2,251.32 crore under this scheme.
The State was sanctioned ₹2,400 crore during 2020-21, said NABARD Chief General Manager S. Selvaraj.
As for the MIF aimed at helping the States mobilise the resources for expanding micro irrigation, Tamil Nadu was given about ₹1,358 crore during 2019-20, said the NABARD document, adding that an area of about 4.76 lakh hectares was expected to benefit.
During 2020-21, the State availed itself of around ₹950 crore. “It may draw ₹200 crore more by March-end,” Mr. Selvaraj said.
