[caption id="attachment_17269" align="alignnone" width="299"]                                 File Photo[/caption] After facing a massive budget cut last year, the future of the Panchayati Raj Ministry continues to look bleak. After the BJP government shuttered two of its key programmes - the Backward Regions Grants Fund (BRGF) and the Rajiv Gandhi Panchayat Sashaktikaran Abhiyan (RGPSA) - several officials at the Ministry feel it would soon be closed down and turned into a department under the Ministry of Rural Development. "The government is turning this Ministry irrelevant so that no one questions it when they shut it down," a senior official said. Last year's budget cut, from Rs. 7,000 crores to Rs. 96 crores, left such an impact on the Ministry that it lost confidence in empowering panchayats nationwide. "Our role has been reduced. We are more like an advisory or advocacy group," said another official at the Ministry, wishing not to be named. After the budget sequestration, the official said it was Dr. S.M. Vijayanand, then Secretary at the Panchayati Raj Ministry, who battled his way through the Finance Ministry and managed to rescue some elements of RGPSA on the condition that it will be renamed Rashtriya Gram Swaraj Abhiyan (RGSA). This year, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley allotted Rs. 655 crores to RGSA.