The cabinet has approved Rs 5142 crore for the development of smart villages. The fund has been allocated under Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Gramin Vikas Yojana, aka SPM Rurban Mission (SPMRM) under rural development ministry.

The announcement was made by rural development minister Chaudhary Birender Singh and communications and IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad at a cabinet briefing on Wednesday.

Prasad said that the government is not just focusing on developing smart cities but also smart villages. “The SPMRM will prove to be an important step in this direction,” he further said.

The SPMRM was announced during 2014-2015 budget to improve infrastructure, promote economic activities and skill development in rural areas.

“The mission objective of the scheme is to improve standard of living in Rurban clusters, to bridge the rural – urban divide and to reduce migration from rural to urban areas and eventually to facilitate reverse migration,” the budget document said.

“We have decided to create 300 such clusters in all the states of the country, including Union teritories,” Singh  said, while replying to a question in Rajya Sabha in March. There is no question of leaving any state, including North-Eastern states, out of the purview of SPMRM, he said.

The states will select the villages to be turned into clusters with 12 important facilities like road, electricity, water supply, public transport and others.

If a village does not have the stipulated population, 5,000-15,000 in hilly areas and 25,000-50,000 in plains, then more villages could be clubbed to form a cluster, he said.