Rural Ministry to share 1 pc of its budget with panchayats

"The Ministry of Rural Development has a budget of nearly one lakh crore and out of that one percent is being given to the Panchayati Raj Ministry which means approximately Rs 990 crore they will be giving to us," Deo told reporters at the sidelines of a function organised to celebrate the National Panchayati Raj Day here.

"The Ministry of Rural Development has a budget of nearly Rs one lakh crore and out of that on percent is being given to the Panchayati Raj ministry which means approximately Rs 990 crore they will be giving to us," he said.

"It was for the first time that the Rural Development Ministry would be sharing some of its allotted funds with the Panchayati Raj Ministry," Deo said.

Deo said that there is a need to strengthen the infrastructure of panchayats in the country and the money shared by the Rural Development Ministry will also contribute to it.

"We will further strengthen the infrastructure of Panchayati institutions and there are 60,000 panchayats today who don't even have their own buildings," Deo said.

"We have to create basic infrastructure for them, and concentrate of capacity building, training, monitoring and providing guidelines for panchayats to functions. But the feedback of what has been done till now has been very good," he added.