Enhancing rural youth key to unlocking India's demographic dividend: Jaitley

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Saturday proposed to enhance the potential of rural youth, terming it as the 'key' to realise India's demographic dividend.

"With rural populations comprising 70 percent of India's population, enhancing probability of rural youth is the key to unlocking India's demographic dividend. With this in mind, we have launched the Deen Dayal Upadhyay Gramin Kushal Yojana and Rs 1,500 crores has been set apart for this scheme. Disbursement will be through a digital voucher directly into qualified students' bank accounts," Jaitley said in his 2015-16 budget speech in Parliament.

"This year, when we will entering the 100th birth anniversary of Pt. Deen Dayal Upadhyay, the intention of the government is to celebrate the occasion of the great nationalist in a befitting manner. In order to enable all poor and middle class students to pursue their education in their choice without constraint, I propose to set up a fully IT-based student financial aid authority to administer and enable scholarships as also the educational loan scheme through the Pradhan Mantri Vidya Lakshmi Karyakram. We will ensure that no student will miss out on higher education for lack of fund," he added.