Budget a great push towards electoral reforms: Kiren Rijiju

The Budget for 2017-18 reflects India's intent for electoral reforms and transparency in governance, Union Minister Kiren Rijiju on Friday said in New Delhi.

He also expressed satisfaction over the increased allocation in the budget for his ministry.

"Transparency is the hallmark of any governance and it has to start from the conduct of any political party. For the last 70 years, there has been a talk of electoral reforms but this budget has given a great push towards that. Now, every political party has to conduct itself in a very transparent manner. If political parties are not transparent, we cannot talk about transparent India," he said.

Terming the budget as "a very transforming" one, he said for the first time, India has given a clear direction to empower itself to become one of the leading nations of the world.

"And the emphasis being given on infrastructure, rural sector and for digital India is clear for everybody to see," he told reporters.

"The financial direction of India is such that youth are going to be an integral part of the whole process now. A lot of emphasis has been given on start-ups, for job creation. The focus on infrastructure has been the hallmark of this budget."

Rijiju said rural India is going to transform.

"The massive jump in budget allocation for MGNREGA, PMGSY, for telecom and farm sector, everything which is rural focussed is going to shape India in a much better way," he said on sidelines of an event.

The Minister of State for Home said Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has given lots of support to the efforts of the Home Ministry.

"MHA has got a huge jump in its budgetary allocation...In capital expenditure as well as revenue expenditure. There is a huge jump. For the border infrastructure, we are going to have very good support this time and our security system has to be very robust, and for that the budgetary allocation is very satisfactory," Rijiju said.

The Home Ministry's budgetary provisions have been pegged at over Rs 83,000 for the next fiscal, a hike of 11 per cent over 2016-17, with a special emphasis being laid on improving the infrastructure of police forces.