Swarnajayanti Grameen Swarojgar Yojana (SGSY), one of the flagship programs of the RD
Ministry with the focus on self-employment by reaching out to Self Help Groups,
launched in the year 1999 is being restructured as the National Rural
Livelihoods Mission (NRLM), to be implemented in a mission mode across the
country. The restructuring comes in the backdrop of the fact that out of the
estimated 7 crore rural BPL households, 4.5 Crore households still need to be organized into SHGs. The
mission aims to reach out to all the rural poor families (BPL families) and
link them to sustainable livelihoods opportunities. It will nurture them till
they come out of poverty and enjoy a decent quality of life.
*NRLM Mission
: To reduce poverty by enabling the poor households to access gainful
self-employment and skilled wage employment opportunities resulting in
appreciable improvement in their livelihoods on a sustainable basis, through
building strong and sustainable grassroots institutions of the poor.”
* Approach
NRLM works on three pillars
*Enhancing and expanding existing livelihoods options of the
poor
*Building skills for the job market outside; and
*Nurturing self-employed and entrepreneurs.
Livelihood services include financial and capital services,
production and productivity enhancement services that include technology,
knowledge, skills and inputs, market linkages etc. The interested rural BPL
youth would be offered skill development after counselling
and matching the aptitude with the job requirements, and placed in jobs that
are remunerative. Self-employed and entrepreneurial oriented poor would be
provided skills and financial linkages and nurtured to establish and grow with
micro-enterprises for products and services in demand. These platforms also
offer space for convergence and partnerships with a variety of stakeholders, by
building an enabling environment for poor to access their rights and
entitlements, public services and innovations.
*Why in Mission Mode
:
NRLM implementation is in a Mission Mode. This enables:
(a) shift from the present
allocation based strategy to a demand
driven strategy, enabling the states to formulate their own
livelihoods-based poverty reduction action plans,
(b) focus on targets, outcomes and
time bound delivery,
(c) continuous capacity building,
imparting requisite skills and creating linkages with livelihoods opportunities
for the poor, including those emerging in the organized sector, and (d)
monitoring against targets of poverty outcomes.
As NRLM follows a demand driven strategy, the States have the flexibility to develop their
livelihoods-based perspective plans and annual action plans for poverty
reduction. The overall plans would be within the allocation for the state
based on inter-se poverty ratios.
The poor will drive
the agenda, through participatory planning at grassroots level,
implementation of their own plans, reviewing and generating further plans based
on their experiences. The plans will not only be demand driven, they will also
be dynamic.
* Key
Features of NRLM
Social Inclusion and Institutions of the Poor
1. Universal Social Mobilization: NRLM
would ensure that at least
one member from each identified rural poor household, preferably a woman, is
brought under the Self Help Group (SHG) network in a time bound manner. NRLM
would ensure adequate coverage of vulnerable sections of the society such that 50% of the beneficiaries are
SC/STs, 15% are minorities and 3% are persons with disability, while keeping in
view the ultimate target of 100% coverage of BPL families.
2. Promotion of Institutions of the poor: Strong institutions of the poor such
as SHGs and their village level and higher level federations would be promoted.
3. Training, Capacity building and skill building: NRLM would
ensure that the poor are provided with the requisite skills for:
managing their institutions, linking up with markets, managing their existing
livelihoods, enhancing their credit absorption capacity and credit worthiness,
etc.
4. Revolving Fund and Capital Subsidy: Subsidy
would be available in the form of revolving fund and capital subsidy.
5. Universal Financial Inclusion: NRLM would
work towards achieving universal financial inclusion, beyond basic banking
services to all the poor households, SHGs and their federations.
6. Provision of Interest Subsidy: The rural poor need credit at low
rate of interest and in multiple doses to make their ventures economically
viable.
Livelihoods
7. NRLM would
look at the entire portfolio of livelihoods of each poor household, and work
towards stabilizing and enhancing the existing livelihoods and subsequently
diversifying their livelihoods.
8. Infrastructure creation and
Marketing support: NRLM would seek to ensure that the infrastructure
needs for key livelihoods activities of the poor are fully met. 20% of the
state’s programme outlay is reserved for this
purpose.
9. Skills and Placement Projects: NRLM would pursue skill upgradation and placement projects through partnership mode
as it is one of the best investments in youth, and provides impetus to
livelihoods opportunities in emerging markets. National Skill Development
Corporation (NSDC) would be one of the leading partners in this effort. 15%
of the central allocation under NRLM is earmarked for this purpose.
10. Rural Self Employment Training Institutes (RSETIs)
NRLM encourages public
sector banks to set up RSETIs in all districts of the country. RSETIs
transform unemployed rural youth in the district into confident self-employed
entrepreneurs through need-based experiential learning program followed by
systematic handholding support.
11. Innovations: NRLM believes that successful
innovations can reduce the learning curve for poverty eradication by showing a
better pathway or a different pathway out of poverty. 5% of the Central
allocation is earmarked for innovations.
Convergence
and partnerships
11.
Convergence: NRLM
would place a very high emphasis on convergence with other programs of the
Ministry of Rural Development and other Central Ministries, and programs of
state governments for developing synergies directly and through the
institutions of the poor.
12. Partnerships with NGOs and other
CSOs: NRLM would
proactively seek partnerships with Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) and
other Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), at two levels - strategic and
implementation.
13.
Linkages with PRIs: Formal
mechanisms would be established for regular consultations between the institutions
of the poor and the PRIs for exchange of mutual advice, support and sharing of
resources. However, care would be taken to protect their autonomy. Where there
are no PRIs, the linkages would be with traditional local village institutions.
Sensitive
Support
14. External
Sensitive Support Structures: NRLM’s process-intensive effort would require dedicated human resources. Realizing
this, NRLM would be setting up sensitive and dedicated support structures at
the National, State, district and
sub-district levels. NRLM Advisory, Coordination and Empowered Committees
and National Mission Management Unit at the national level, State Rural
Livelihoods Missions (SRLMs) as autonomous bodies and State Mission Management
Units at state level, District Mission Management Units at district level, and
sub-district units at block and/or cluster levels would constitute these
support structures. These structures would have suitable linkages with
Government(s), District Rural Development Agencies (DRDAs), and PRIs.
15. Technical Support: NRLM would provide technical
assistance to the States and all other partners for creating and strengthening
their institutional capacities for its effective implementation.
16. Monitoring and Learning: NRLM would monitor its results, processes and activities
through web-enabled comprehensive MIS, regular meetings of the Performance
Review Committee(s), visits by senior colleagues, Local, District, State and
National Monitoring Groups and the mechanisms of Review and Planning Missions.
Process monitoring studies, thematic studies and impact evaluations would
provide inputs to the above. It would also promote social accountability
practices to introduce greater transparency.
17. Funding Pattern: NRLM is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme
and the financing of the program would be shared between the Centre and the States in the ratio of
75:25 (90:10 in case of North Eastern States including Sikkim; completely from
the Centre in case of UTs).
18. Phased Implementation: A phased implementation approach is
adopted in NRLM. NRLM would reach all districts and blocks by the end of 12th
Five-year Plan. The blocks that are taken up for intensive implementation
of NRLM, would have access to a full complement of trained professional staff
and cover a whole range of activities of universal and intense social and
financial inclusion, livelihoods, partnerships etc.
19. Transition to NRLM
All States/UTs would have to transit to NRLM within a period
of one year from the date of formal launch of NRLM. Further funding under SGSY
ceases thereafter.
Agenda before NRLM
NRLM
has set out with an agenda to reach out, mobilize and support 7 Crore BPL households across 600 districts, 6000 blocks, 2.5
lakh Gram Panchayats, in 6 lakh villages in the country into their self-managed SHGs
and their federal institutions and livelihoods collectives. NRLM’s long-term
dedicated sensitive support would be with them and extend facilitation support
in all their efforts to get out of poverty. In addition, the poor would be
facilitated to achieve increased access to their rights, entitlements and
public services, diversified risk and better social indicators of empowerment.
Economic Assistance/Financial
Norms/Ceilings
1.
Formation of SHGs - Rs. 10,000 per
SHG to be given to NGOs/CBOs/Community Coordinators/Facilitators/Animators
towards group formation and development.
2.
Revolving Fund (RF) – As a corpus to
SHG with a minimum of Rs. 10,000 to a maximum of Rs. 15,000 per SHG. This is
given to all SHGs that have not received RF earlier. Only those SHGs with more
than 70% BPL members are eligible for RF.
3.
Capital Subsidy (CS) – Capital
subsidy ceiling is applicable, both for members of SHGs and individual
beneficiaries @Rs. 15,000 per general category and Rs. 20,000 per SC/ST
category. The maximum amount of subsidy that an SHG is eligible for is Rs. 2.50
lakh. Only BPL members are eligible for individual
subsidy, and, only those SHGs with more than 70% BPL members are eligible for
the subsidy to SHGs.
4.
Capacity building and skills training
- Rs. 7,500 per beneficiary – The amount available under this component is used
for training and capacity building not only of the beneficiaries but also of
all other stakeholders, including programme officers
and staff, community professionals, concerned government officials, NGOs, PRI
functionaries etc. Expenditure on exposure visits and immersion visits is also be covered under this component. The skills
training here refers to member level training for self-employment and is
distinct from the Placement-linked Skills training.
5.
Interest subsidy - Subsidy on
interest rate above 7% per annum for all SHG loans availed from banks, based on
prompt repayment. Interest subsidy would be provided to an individual beneficiary
or SHG member till he/she has availed a bank loan up to an amount of Rs 1.00 lakh. It is expected that there will be repeat doses of
financing to members in SHGs and this limit of ` 1.0 Lakh
is the cumulative loan availed by a member (household). This subsidy is not
available on such occasions when the SHG is availing capital subsidy.
6.
One
time grant for corpus fund for sustainability and effectiveness of federations
–
· Rs 10,000 for Village/Panchayat
level federation
· Rs 20,000 for Block level federation
· Rs 100,000 for District level federation
7.
Administrative expenses – 5% of the allocation, net of the component relating to skill
development & placement and net of the component of RSETIs. This amounts to
5% of Central release to the State and the corresponding State share.
8. Infrastructure and Marketing - Up to 20% (25% in case of north
eastern states and Sikkim) of the
Central share and State share of allocation i.e. state’s program outlay.
9.
Skills and Placement Projects and
Innovations (20% of the Central allocation) - Expenditure on innovative
projects should not exceed 5%; and the remaining 15% is for placement linked
skill development projects. 50% of the
allocation for placement linked skill development projects (7.5%) is retained
at the centre for multi-state skill development projects and the balance is
allocated to states to implement state specific skill development and placement
projects. The States have to add the corresponding state share to the amount
released to them.
It is expected that the launch of the mission would give
impetus to the poverty alleviation measures and ensure equitable and inclusive
growth in the country.
*****
AKT/ST