Govt will not set up a separate fund for Aspirational Districts: Sitharaman
Mumbai/IBNS: Clarifying government's stand on funding the Aspirational Districts, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday said the government will not create a separate fund like SC/ST fund for the Aspirational Districts but facilitate reaching of the existing schemes to these districts.
"It is not the intention to create a separate fund to deal with the Aspirational Districts. A total of 112 districts were picked up after observing that they did not benefit from the government schemes, fiscal or otherwise, over the years whereas every district in the country should have benefitted equally by every programme of every government at the Centre, state and local body level," she said while answering a question on allocation of money in the Budget for Aspirational District in an interaction with the economists on Budget 2020 in country's financial capital.
Ministers and secretary-rank officials, who had started their career from these districts, were sent to understand what kept these districts from absorbing the benefits of government schemes.
The idea was not to set up another set of funds for them but to facilitate the absorption of the existing schemes.
"After two years, many of the Aspirational Districts have crossed the hump, and are moving but still there is lot of work to do," she added.
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