Government Schemes for Rural India, Women, Children and Employment

The government of India introduces many schemes every year for the growth and development of the country. These Government schemes are usually called the yojana. These yojanas can be a part of a mission or can be a sole programe.

NITI Aayog is the policy-making body of India. It came into being in 2015 with an aim to achieve sustainable goals of India. It comes under the Ministry of Planning.

Let’s take a look at important government schemes/yojana for – Rural India, Skill Development, Employment, and Women and Children.

Government Schemes for Rural India

1. Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana

On the 98th birth anniversary of Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya, this scheme became official in 2014. The motto of this scheme is to “Transform rural poor youth into an economically independent and globally relevant workforce”. It targets youth (15–35 years) as a part of the National Rural Livelihood Mission.

It aims to give diversity to the rural poor family’s income and help rural youth with careers. An amount of Rs 1,500 crores is released for this scheme to improve the employability of rural youth.

2. Pradhan Mantri Gramin Awaas Yojana

It is a social welfare programme by the Indian Government for providing housing facilities to rural poor in India. This scheme is similar to Housing for All by 2022 scheme 2015. It began as Indira Awaas Yojana launched in 1985.

It comes under the Ministry of Rural Development and constructs houses for the BPL population in the rural areas. This provides cash assistance and subsidies to the villagers for building their houses.

3. Gramin Bhandaran Yojana

It is a capital investment subsidy scheme begun in 2001. The subsidy is for constructing or renovating the warehouses for storing farm produce in rural areas. The idea is to increase farmer’s holding capacity.

This can avoid distress sales and help them establish. It promotes scientific storage capacity with facilities to help farmers.

4. Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana

It is a Government of India scheme to provide a continuous power supply to rural India. This scheme replaced Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana in 2015. It focuses on strengthening infrastructure like metering at all levels in rural areas.

This will help in providing power to agricultural consumers. It comes under the Ministry of Power.

5. Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act

It is an Indian labor law to guarantee the ‘right to work’. It came into establishment in 2006.
The idea is to enhance livelihood security in rural areas by giving 100 days of wage employment to every household there.

The employment has to be a minimum of 100 days per financial year for every volunteering household. The gram panchayats handle MGNREGA in their villages. It comes under the Ministry of Rural Development.

6. Remunerative Approach for Agriculture and Allied sector Rejuvenation

It was a National Agriculture Development Programme and a State Plan Scheme of Additional Central Assistance. It began in 2007 as Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana. This was a part of the 11th Five Year Plan by the Government of India.

It was under the National Development Council and aims to achieve a 4% annual growth in agriculture. It ended in 2011 after completing the 11th five-year plan.

7. Sampoorna Grameen Rozgar Yojana

It was a scheme by the Government of India to provide employment for the rural poor. The Panchayati Raj institution maintains this scheme. The Employment Assurance Scheme and Jawahar Gram Samridhi Yojana merged and led to the establishment of SGRY in 2003.

The programme aims to provide employment and food in rural areas to BPL families. It comes under the Ministry of Rural Development.

8. Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana

It is a nationwide plan in India to provide good road connectivity to secluded areas. Places with populations of 500 and above are to be connected by all-weather roads.

By 2017, 82% of these areas were already connected. This Centrally Sponsored Scheme became official in 2000 by Late Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

9. Pradhan Mantri Adarsh Gram Yojana

It is a rural development programme by the central government that began in 2009. It is mainly for the development of villages with a higher SC/ST ratio, over 50%. The idea is to merge several central government schemes to develop these villages.

The schemes are – Bharat Nirman, Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, MGNREGA, Integrated Child Development Services, and more. This program is applicable to 44,000 villages SC/ST population above 50%. It comes under the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment.

10. National Rural Livelihood Mission

It is a poverty alleviation project by the Government of India that began in 2011. This scheme aims to promote the self-employment of the rural poor. The idea is to organize the poor into a Self Help Group for self-employment.

It comes under the Ministry of Rural Development. The world bank finances this scheme as it is one of the largest schemes working for rural poor. Deen Dayal Antyodaya Yojana took over it in 2015.

11. Swamitva Yojana

Swamitva Yojana is a government scheme to encourage land ownership in rural areas with use of modern technology. The Panchayati Raj ministry of the Union government is responsible for this scheme management.

Panchayati Raj Day 2020 saw the launch of this scheme. The reason is many villagers don’t have a paper to prove their land. This yojana is to provide them ownership rights.

12. Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana

It is a rural development programme that focuses on social, cultural, and economic development. It aims to motivate people on social mobilization of the village community.

This yojana is demand-driven, inspired by society, and based on people’s participation. It comes under the Ministry of Rural Development and began in 2014.

Government Schemes for Skills and Employment

1. Kishore Vaigyanik Protsahan Yojana

It is a scholarship program by the Department of Science and Technology under the Government of India. It aims to encourage students to choose research careers in basic sciences. The offer is up to the pre-Ph.D. level for selected students. It provides them scholarships and contingency grants for this.

The Indian Institute of Science manages this programme from 1999. The students have to clear a three-tier exam to get benefits of KVPY.

2. National Service Scheme

It is an Indian government public service program. It comes under the Ministry of Youth Affairs. And the administrator is the sport’s government of India. Gandhiji took the initiative to launch this scheme in 1969.

It aims at developing a student’s personality through community service. NSS is present in schools, colleges, and universities to encourage the youth to participate.

3. Deen Dayal Antyodaya Yojana

It is a scheme by the Government of India to help the poor by providing skill training. It replaces the existing Aajeevika scheme. The main aim is to train 0.5 million people in urban areas and 1 million in rural areas by 2016.

The idea is to maintain international standards by skill development of both rural and urban India. It began as Swarnajayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana in 1999. It comes under the Ministry of Rural Development.

4. Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana

It is a skill development scheme by the Government of India for skill recognition and standardization. The idea is to encourage employable skills and the working efficiency of daily wage earners. It is by providing monetary rewards and quality training.

Training programmes function on the basis of National Occupational Standards. The scheme targets to train 1 crore Indian youth by 2020. It began in 2015 and comes under the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship. It is a part of the Skill India Campaign 2015.

5. National Career Service

It is a Mission Mode Project by the Government of India. This aims to establish efficient career-related services across the country. It focuses on providing skills and employment.

The idea is to promote IT-enabled career centers for providing a digital platform to the employment market. It mainly caters to youth and students. It comes under the Ministry of Labour and Employment.

6. Digital India Programme

It is a campaign by the Government of India. This is to ensure the Government’s services are available to all citizens electronically. It is to improve online infrastructure by increasing Internet connectivity.

They also aim to connect rural areas with high-speed internet networks. It comes under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.

7. Make in India

Make in India is an initiative by the Government of India that began in 2014. It encourages companies to invest and manufacture their products in India. The initiative targets 25 economic sectors for job creation and skill enhancement.

It aims to increase the manufacturing sector growth rate to 12-14% per year and create 100 million manufacturing jobs in the Indian economy by 2022. It comes under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.

8. Startup India

It is an initiative by the Government of India that began in 2015 to support entrepreneurship by funding support and incentives, Industry-Academia Partnership and Incubation, and Simplification and Handholding.

It is similar to Stand Up India that primarily looks at women and vulnerable sections of society. They both come under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.

Government Schemes for Women and Children

1. Pradhan Mantri Matritva Vandana Yojana – 2017

It is a maternity benefit program by the government of India introduced in 2017. It comes under the Ministry of Women and Child Development. The first time pregnant and lactating women of 19 years of age or above can apply for this conditional cash transfer scheme.

It aims to provide conditions for safe delivery and good nutrition for women. National Food Security Act, 2013 tied up with this scheme to provide cash maternity benefit of ₹6,000.

2. Janani Suraksha Yojana – 2005

It is a safe motherhood scheme under the National Health Mission. It aims to reduce maternal and neonatal mortality by supporting institutional delivery for poor pregnant women. The main focus is on the Low Performing States.

It offers cash assistance with delivery and post-delivery care. It began in 2005 with the idea of a safe pregnancy.

3. Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana

It is an Indian Government scheme to distribute LPG connections to women of Below Poverty Line families. 22 million LPG connections were distributed against the target of 15 million. The number crossed 58 million in 2018.

The yojana led to a rise in LPG consumption by 56% in 2019. It comes under the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas. The Prime Minister made this scheme official in 2016 with a target of 15 million.

4. National Literacy Mission Programme

It is an Indian government programme to create a literate society. This scheme has four elements – Sakshar Bharat, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha, and teacher training programs.

It mainly focuses on women and children’s education as they are a large part of the Indian Population. It began in 1988 and comes under the Ministry of Human Resource Development.

5. Integrated Child Development Services

It is a government programme to provide basic facilities for children under 6 years of age and their mothers. The facilities include – food, preschool education, primary healthcare, immunization, and health check-up. It began in 1975 and stopped in the 90s by Moraji Desai.

It resumed again as part of the Tenth five-year plan. This scheme also intended to reduce gender inequality by providing girls the same resources. It comes under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

6. National Child Labour Projects

It is an Indian Government Scheme to rehabilitate working children in labor endemic districts in India. There were 12 such districts when the scheme became official in 1988. It comes under the Ministry of Labour and Employment.

7. Sukanya Samridhi Yojana

It is a Government of India saving scheme for the parents of girl children. This encourages parents to save funds for their female child’s future education and marriage expenses. It became official in 2015 as a part of the Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao campaign.

The scheme provides an interest rate of 7.6% and tax benefits. Any Post office or authorized commercial banks can facilitate this scheme account. It comes under the Ministry of Women and Child Development.

8. Midday Meal Scheme

It is a school meal programme by the Government of India. It aims to provide better nutritional standing of school-age children nationwide. The programme offers free lunch meals to children in primary and upper primary classes in government schools on working days.

This scheme feeds lakhs of children every day. It began in 1995 and comes under the Ministry of Human Resource Development.

9. Sabla

It is the Rajiv Gandhi Scheme for Empowerment of Adolescent Girls begun in 2011. The idea is to encourage self-development and empowerment of adolescent girls. They also want to improve their nutrition and health and promote awareness around their changing body.

It comes under the Ministry of Women and Child Development. It is applicable to girls between the age of 11to 18 years.

Conclusion

The Government Schemes are part of the general knowledge section of many competitive exams. They will have questions related to this topic, it can be about the ministry or the objective. They are an important part of Indian Polity. It is important to know the basic information about them.

Exams like UPSC, SSC, RRB, Banking, and more have GK sections. This article covers facts and basic descriptions of important government schemes in India. It should help make your learning process smoother. Aspirants must give this article a read before the exams.