New Delhi: Union Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Monday said the government’s infrastructure investment budget should be Rs 15 lakh crore per annum, against Rs 11.5 lakh crore at present for the next 25 years to achieve 'Viksit Bharat @2047’ and social security for all.
“In 2024, the budget has been pegged at Rs 11.5 lakh crore. We have to take it to Rs 15 lakh crore. When the government will invest Rs 15 lakh crore on infrastructure for the next 25 years, only then India will become a developed country (by 2047),” Mandaviya said while addressing the inaugural of ISSA-ESIC International Seminar ‘Formalization & Social Security Coverage for Workers in the Informal Sector Challenges & Innovation’ here.
Mandaviya further stated that the infrastructure investment budget was Rs 1.2 lakh crore in 2012 and this budget was Rs 2.4 lakh crore in 2014 under the Narendra Modi-led government. “The Indian economy is rapidly expanding, increasing the people's purchasing power and creating new jobs in the new sector. I think the government would have to provide social security to workers in these new sectors,” the minister stated.
He also noted that these gig workers who would be part of new sunrise sectors need social security under the government schemes. “The social security coverage was 24 per cent a decade ago, in 2014. Now, it is 48 per cent, which excludes food security and if we add food security to this, then the social security coverage in the country is 68 per cent, which is a big achievement,” he said.
As India has 1.4 billion populations, he noted, under these circumstances the government has done unmatched work in providing social security in the last decade. “Social security means health, pension, livelihood and food security. Today 600 million people in India have health security in India who get free treatment of up to Rs 5 lakh,” he explained.
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