Union Minister of Rural Development and Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Shri Narendra Singh Tomar addressed the State Rural Livelihoods Missions across the country through video conferencing today to deliberate upon leveraging the SHG platform for rural economic growth through convergence of schemes of different Ministries. Addressing the video conference, Shri Narendra Singh Tomar said that DAY-NRLM has facilitated the creation of the SHG network of 66 lakh SHGs covering 7.14 crore rural women. Further emphasis should be given to promote livelihoods through a convergence approach to enhance their incomes. Shri Tomar observed that all the Ministries present in the workshop, also have schemes designed to support Farmers Producers Organisations (FPOs) and a collaborative approach may be adopted to strengthen the initiative.

The meeting was also addressed by Union Minister of Tribal Affairs, Shri Arjun Munda and Union Minister of Food Processing Industries, Smt Harsimrat Kaur Badal. Shri Arjun Munda lauded the new chapter that is being started for growth of the rural economy. He said that there are opportunities for convergence in Pradhan Mantri Van Dhan Yojana (PMVDY), a scheme under Ministry of Tribal Affairs. He expressed that both Ministry of Rural Development and Ministry of Food Processing Industries can partner in PMVDY and involve in capacity building, value addition and marketing of the products from the tribal populated states, which may significantly increase the income of the tribal households.

Smt Harsimrat Kaur Badal said that food processing is a sector with an important role to play in increasing the income of farmers. She highlighted the importance of processing and value addition of food products to enhance income and reduce the wastage of primary agriculture and horticulture produce. She emphasized that Ministry of Food Processing Industries (MoFPI) has schemes on supporting research and development, training and packaging. Schemes of MoRD and MoTA can utilize these resources of MoFPI to promote livelihood interventions in the rural areas.

On the occasion, Union Rural Development and Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare Minister Shri Narendra Singh Tomar released a book “Farm Livelihood Interventions under DAY-NRLM (Strategy, Convergence Framework, Models)”. Ministry of Tribal Affairs and Ministry of Rural Development signed an MoU to take the convergence endeavor ahead and support rural poor including tribal community, complementing each other’s strengths through appropriate convergence and synergic efforts in order to fetch tangible results to be reckoned with.

Smt. Renuka Singh Saruta, Minister of State for Tribal Affairs, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, Minister of State for Rural Development and senior officers of the Department of Rural Development, Department of Agriculture Cooperation and Farmers Welfare, Department of Food Processing Industries and Department of Tribal Affairs were present. The Union Ministers of State present in the video conference stressed upon the need to work on value addition, processing, branding and marketing of rural produce, and stressed that all Ministries need to come together to converge and work towards achieving this goal and eliminate the critical challenges in value chain development. The key convergence strategies were discussed during interaction with the States.

DAY-NRLM has been supporting women lead and managed enterprises in farm and non-farm sectors. The mission has supported 169 Producers Enterprises that have supported 2.78 lakh women farmers. Under non-farm livelihoods, Start-up Village Entrepreneurship Programme (SVEP) has created an eco-system to support enterprises in over 140 blocks and has supported almost 1 lakh enterprises. The workshop discussed the possible ways of leveraging the prorgammes of other Ministries including the Prime Minister’s Formalization of Micro Food Processing Enterprises (PMFME) scheme of MOFPI which has the objective of enhancing the competitiveness of existing individual micro-enterprises in the unorganized segment of the food processing industry and promote formalization of the sector. PMFME has a separate component for supporting SHG enterprises in the food processing sector.

Link of the book “Farm Livelihood interventions under DAY-NRLM (Strategy, Convergence Framework, Models)”

https://aajeevika.gov.in/sites/default/files/nrlp_repository/Farm%20Livelihoods%20Interventions%20Under%20DAY%20NRLM.pdf

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APS/SG