Big gap in urban, rural wages: Government

New Delhi

“The latest year for which the All India Urban and Rural per capita net value added (NVA) is available is 2011-12. The per capita NVA for 2011-12 at current basic prices (base year 2011-12) is Rs 1,01,313 for the urban areas and Rs 40,772 for the rural areas,” Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said in a written reply.

Replying to supplementaries on bridging the gap between rural and urban incomes, Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha said a number of initiatives have been taken in this regard and government aims at doubling rural incomes by 2022.

The Minister of State said the initiatives have been taken to bring about a revolution in the rural sector and increase agriculture production and incomes. To a suggestion for the need to bring a national blueprint for increasing rural incomes, Sinha said “we have presented a national blueprint and that is our budget with focus on rural sector. In this budget we have accorded a lot of importance to rural sector and increased funding to help increase agricultural incomes.”

Jayant Sinha said that the government is also providing Rs 15 lakh to Rs 20 lakh to every panchayat in the current year and a “revolution” would be brought about in the rural sector to help provide a boost to agricultural productivity.

“For rural development, from Rs 57,300 crore earmarked for 2013-14, we have sought to increase it to Rs 86,000 crore, which is a 45 per cent increase. We have also made a 96 pc increase in PM Gramin Sadak Yojna,” he said.

The Minister, however, said though there is a big gap in rural and urban incomes, the cost of living in urban areas is also very high as compared to rural areas. He said government has taken a number of initiatives to help increase rural incomes and provide more purchasing power in the hands of rural people.

“An array of schemes to help increase purchasing power of the farmers are on cards. We are also trying to get people to diversify in production in farm sector in an effort to help boost incomes of those in agriculture sector. Besides, we are also skilling rural people,” he said.