The government launched the National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM) on Wednesday to enahnce the skill of rural manual workers. The mission would allows the self-help groups (SHGs) to access the training and subsidised bank loans for consolidating business activities.
Through NRLM, the government intends to extend a subsidised loans of more than R9,000 crore to SHGs for improving marketing and enhancing training needs of the rural poor during the current fiscal, rural development minister Vilasrao Deshmukh said.
The Union Budget also made a provision of around R3,000 crore for the current financial year.
?We are in talks with various banks for extending subsidised loans to rural poor through SHGs so that they can take up various economic activities,? Deshmukh said.
The support of the rural development ministry for NRLM is part of the government?s plan to push an estimated 7 crore BPL families above the poverty line by scaling up an existing scheme called Swaranjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY) on a ?mission mode? basis by imparting technical skills to rural people. The scheme had aimed to augment poor families? income by giving technical training to one member in each family.
SGSY, which is launched in 1999, aims at ensuring self-employment opportunities covering all aspects including provision of income generating assets, training and capacity building, credit, technology, infrastructure and marketing support.
The new programme will have special focus on the poorest household who are currently dependent on MGNREGA, and these families will be supported to broaden their livelihood through asset and skill acquisition.
Strengthening the SHGs movement, the NRLM proposes universal social mobilisation through such institutions and forming SHG federations at the level of villages, cluster of villages, blocks and districts.
NRLM would be formally launched at Banswara in Rajasthan on Friday by UPA chief Sonia Gandhi.