Disbursement of Rs.1 lakh crore Agriculture Infrastructure Fund starts, says Pradhan
Rural Development Minister Narendra Singh Tomar has listed the potential of steel usage in the rural regions, highlighting some of the estimated capital expenditures.
These are:
The centre and state governments have estimated capital expenditure of Rs.773,915 crores between fiscals 2020 and 2025 on rural infrastructure development.
Also, the Government is launching the Rs.80,000 crore third phase of Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY-III).
Further, the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation will be implementing the Jal Jeevan Mission, costing Rs.360,000 crore, to provide functional household tap connection to every rural household by 2024. The program will be implemented on a shared cost basis by the states and centre Governments.
Additionally, Rs.248,626 crores would be invested in rural housing under PMAY Gramin and about Rs.162,329 crore would be invested to improve rural roads under PMGSY.
All these schemes shall require a large quantity of Steel and thus industry need to bring focus on meeting such rural demands, said Tomar at the Inaugural Session of the Webinar on ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat: Fostering Steel Usage in Rural Economy’ on 20 Oct 2020.
Tomar expressed hope that the webinar presentations and discussions will provide useful insights about key growth drivers, issues, challenges and opportunities for fostering domestic steel usage in the rural sector.
Steel Minister Dharmendra Pradhan informed that the government has started disbursing Rs.1 lakh crore Agriculture Infrastructure Fund with many new sectors being given priority.
“We are developing 5,000 Compressed Bio-Gas (CBG) plants across the country,” he pointed out.
Reserve Bank of India has recently included CBG in the priority sector for development.
“We are working on making ethanol from rice. The mission to ensure housing for all, investments in rural roads, railway infra augmentation and impetus to agriculture will all create greater steel demand,” said Pradhan.
The Government will also infuse Rs.10,000 crore for the production of 100 crore litres of ethanol across the country from rice. All these will generate maximum benefit to rural India, he added.
The webinar is a part of a series of consultations the Steel Ministry is holding with various stakeholders so that any gap between the user and the producer is filled up in the shortest possible time.
The Ministry will identify and initiate the top four action areas in association with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) shortly to bring the desired result in increasing per capita steel consumption of the country.
Organised by the Steel Ministry in association with CII, the webinar was attended by more than 1,000 stakeholders from different sectors. #projects #tenders #development #steel #housing #infrastructure /fiinews.com
