Union Cabinet allocates Rs 5,142 crore to develop 300 smart village clusters

• Seeking to bridge the rural-urban divide, government will set up 300 rural clusters by 2019-20 across the country as the Union Cabinet approved Shyama Prasad Mukherji Rurban Mission with an outlay of Rs 5142.08 crore.
• The mission aims to spur economic, social and infrastructure development in rural areas.
• The preferred mode of delivery would be through Public Private Partnerships while using various scheme funds.
• Rural Development Minister Chaudhary Birender Singh said the earlier scheme was only limited to the private sector.
• The State Governments would identify the clusters in accordance with the framework for implementation prepared by the Ministry of Rural Development.
• The scheme will function with 14 mandatory components to ensure an optimum level of development of a cluster, which include skill development training linked to economic activities, digital literacy, fully equipped mobile health unit and inter-village road connectivity.
• The mission, which is said to be modelled on a similar initiative in Gujarat, will focus on creating community assets and improving basic infrastructure such as roads, shelter, power and drinking water in rural belts.
• These clusters would be developed by provisioning of economic activities, developing skills and local entrepreneurship and providing infrastructure amenities, the Rurban Mission will thus develop a cluster of Smart Villages.
• The Mission also has an Innovation budget towards facilitating research, development and capacity building.

Source: ET