About 4.5 crore households across the country benefited from the pioneering National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) in the financial year 2008-09, an increase of 32 per cent over the previous year, said the Economic survey.
The NREGS, the flagship programme of the previous United Progressive Alliance (UPA), aimed at generating jobs in the rural areas, provided employment to over 4.47 crore households in the previous fiscal.
"This is a significant jump over the 3.39 crore households covered under the scheme during 2007-08," the Survey noted.
The pioneering programme saw its budget outlay increase to Rs 30,100 crore in the interim budget for 2009-10. In the last fiscal, the same stood at Rs 16,000 crore.
"Out of the 215.63 crore person-days created under the scheme during this period (2008-09). 29 per cent and 25 per cent were in favour of SC and ST population, respectively, and 48 peer cent of the total person-days created went in favour of women," the Survey added.
According to the Survey, agriculture debt waiver and relief schemes implemented in 2008-09 helped in restoring institutional credit to farmers apart from reviving investment in rural areas.
"The agriculture debt waiver and relief scheme implemented during the year was able to restore institutional credit to farmers and helped to support demand and revive investment in the rural and the agriculture sector," it said.
Apart from the NREGS, other anti-poverty and employment generation programmes are also being implemented.
Under the Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana, a self-employment programme for the rural poor, about 3.4 million self-help groups had been formed up to March 2009.
"Up to March 2009, 3.4 million self-help groups (SHGs) had been formed and over 120 million swarozgaris have been assisted with a total outlay of Rs 27,183.03 crore," the Survey detailed.
Under another government programme — Swarna Jayanti Shahari Rozgar Yojana — for urban poverty alleviation, more than nine lakh poor people benefited in 2008-09.
The report noted that under the scheme during the last fiscal, 947,000 lakh urban poor were assisted to set up individual or group micro-enterprises and 1.48 million urban poor were imparted training.
