The government proposed to step up funding for the social sector, including its flagship National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme and school education programmes, to improve the lot of a quarter of its population that lives in poverty.

Presenting the Budget for 2007-08 in Parliament on Wednesday, Finance Minister P Chidambaram said NREGS will be expanded to 330 districts from the current 200 districts.

The government has proposed an initial allocation of Rs 12,000 crore for the scheme. He also proposed a hike of around 35 per cent in the allocation for various school education programmes.

An amount of Rs 23,142 crore (Rs 231.42 billion) has been allocated for them, as against Rs 17,133 crore (Rs 171.33 billion) in 2006-07.

In addition, a sum of Rs 2,800 crore (Rs 28 billion) will be provided for the Sampoorna Gramin Rozgar Yojana for rural employment in districts not covered by NREGS.

Allocation for the Swaranjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana will be increased to Rs 1,800 crore (Rs 18 billion) in 2007-08 from Rs 1,200 crore (Rs 12 billion) in the current fiscal.

The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and Mid-day Meal Scheme will be provided Rs 10,671 crore (Rs 106.71 billion) and Rs 7,324 crore (Rs 73.24 billion) respectively in 2007-08, Chidambaram said.

He also proposed to double the provision for secondary education to Rs 3,794 crore (Rs 37.94 billion) from Rs 1,837 crore (Rs 18.37 billion) in 2006-07.

Concerned at the increasing dropout rate in schools, he announced a National Means-cum-Merit Scholorship Scheme under which each student who completes Classes IX to XII will be given Rs 6,000 a year.