The scheme was announced by finance minister P Chidambaram in the budget. The industry ministry proposes to actively involve the state governments in implementing the scheme and the Centre will oversee the implementation.
In his budget speech, Chidambaram had stated that the government had earmarked a budgetary support of Rs 130 crore for the programme. Another Rs 70 crore has been allocated to strengthen the on-going village industries programmme.
The ministry has a corpus of Rs 200 crore at its disposal to create employment in the village industry sector in 1996-97.
A similar conference of state industry ministers was called by the earlier government in June last year to draw up a plan to utilise funds worth Rs 1000 crore allocated for 1996-97.
This year's budget has said the Rs 1,000 crore would be made available to the khadi and village sector sector through a consortium of nationalised banks. The allocation had been made with the aim to make adequate and timely credit available to the sector.
This credit has never been drawn adequately by the sector. Economic Survey 1996 had admitted to a marginal decline in bank credit to the priority sector.
It said the khadi and village industries commission had not been able to fully draw upon the line of bank credit announced by the government during the last budget. The survey has not disclosed the actual sums drawn by this sector.
The commission has till date provided employment to 60 lakh people, who are responsible for producing goods worth Rs 4,000 crore. These jobs have been created using locally available raw materials, skills and simple techniques of production and low per capita investment.
About 50 districts have been selected for the special employment programme on the basis of backwardness and development potential, sources said.
