The government now plans to push an estimated 5 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 aims to augment poor families? income by giving technical training to one member in each family.
According to a proposal sent to the Cabinet by the rural development ministry, at least one member of around 5 crore rural poor families under the BPL category would be imparted technical skill for making them eligible for semi-technical jobs in the rural or semi urban areas.
Launched in 1999, SGSY 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. According to the official data, under SGSY scheme more than 25,000 youth have been trained and placed in growing sectors like textile, leather, construction etc.
?Our focus will be to substantially scale up SGSY during the 11th plan period for including at least one member of each BPL families in the country,? Rita Sharma, secretary, department of rural development told FE. Sharma said that the purpose is to augment incomes of BPL families by at least Rs 2,000 to Rs 3,000 per month through self employment opportunities.
The rural ministry has been focusing on providing skill development training to rural youth so that they can get employment in those sectors of the economy where there is demand for labour especially lower end of skill base. The ministry aims to push for SGSY in mission mode as it wants to eradicate chronic poverty by enhancing skill development rather than providing wage employment.
?We are at present seeking opinion from the Cabinet as well as experts prior to the launch of the programme,? Sharma said. She also said the ministry is yet to work out budget for taking up SGSY in mission mode.
The central allocation under SGSY has been to tune of Rs 4912 crore during 2004-8 and more than 16 lakh unemployed people have been assisted under the programme.
However, with the massive expansion plan, the resource allocation would be key to the implementation of the programme as the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government has already exhausted the budgetary allocation of Rs 16,000 crore under the flagship prgramme National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA).
NREGA, launched in 2006, for the first time guaranteed 100 days of manual labour to each rural household.
The rural development ministry, which was recently given Rs 10,500 crore for NREGA as the supplementary grant will have to really bargain hard with the finance ministry for launching such a mega SGSY mission mode programme.
According to a ministry official, on an average NREGA has managed to provide Rs 8,000 ? Rs 10,000 per annum as wage to each family belonging to rural poor which is still insufficient to fight chronic poverty. Along with old age pension of Rs 200 per month to each person and income from agricultural activities, rural folks are still not ?out of the poverty trap.?