Minister for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, MSMEs, Giriraj Singh has said the Union Budget has given a boost to the sector with the highest ever allocation. <br/><br/>Briefing media in New Delhi this evening, Mr Singh said, allocation under Prime Minister Employment Guarantee Programme is up from nearly 1025 crore rupees in 2017-18 to 1800 crore rupees in the Budget. <br/><br/>He said, it will generate self-employment opportunities through the establishment of about 88 thousand micro enterprises in the non-farm sector, and will create 7 lakh jobs. <br/><br/>The Minister said, apart from the Credit Guarantee Fund Trust for Micro and Small Enterprises, the allocation for individual schemes has also gone up this year by 59 per cent from 3,680 crore to 5,853 crore. He said, after agriculture, MSME sector provides maximum employment. <br/><br/>The Minister said, a new scheme, Solar Charkha Mission has been proposed in the Budget to harness non-conventional solar energy to increase employment generation. He also said, there has been a three-fold increase in allocation for setting up state-of-the- art technology centres. Mr Singh said allocations also increased in National Manufacturing Competitiveness Programme, ASPIRE, SFURTI, National ST SC hub.