As many as 15,000 villages in Rajasthan will be free from poverty by March 2027, Chief Minister Bhajan Lal Sharma asserted while addressing a public meeting under the Vande Ganga water conservation campaign along the embankment of the Rajsamand Lake in Rajsamand city on Wednesday.
“Inspired and guided by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pro-people programmes, the Rajasthan government this year has launched a scheme in 5000 villages that targets to elevate life of poor and retrieve the population therein, above the poverty line,” Sharma said.
To elevate the entire population of the chosen villages above the poverty line (APL), the state has been providing direct financial support. It is also creating awareness among the targetted households for availing the benefits of all pro-poor programmes and enrolling them as beneficiaries of such initiatives.
“We have made an allocation of Rs 300 crore in the state budget for funding the activities under the scheme,” CM Sharma said adding, “We have set a target to free the selected 5,000 villages from BPL status by uplifting all BPL families within the next three months.”
In the next phase, the Rajasthan government will cover 10,000 villages to make them poverty-free over the following year, he added.
The CM reiterated his stance on the poverty alleviation programmes of the previous Congress-led governments, saying, “They had been raised the slogan of poverty elevation since 1952. However, the grand old party and the leaders neither had a proper understanding on the issue nor had a will to work seriously”.
Contrary to this, the present Narendra Modi-led regime since 2014 has always kept the goal of elevation of the poor in each and every one of its initiatives and programmes, the CM added. Besides the poor, the state government has also been working for welfare of youths, women, farmers and labours.