New Delhi (NVI): The Union Cabinet today approved a special package worth Rs 520 crore in the UTs of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh under Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana, National Rural Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NRLM) for a period of five years.
Union Minister Prakash Javadekar made the announcement during a cabinet meeting and said the package will ensure sufficient funds under the mission to both the Union Territories.
The decision is also in line with Government’s aim to universalize all centrally sponsored beneficiary-oriented schemes in the UTs of J&K and Ladakh in a time bound manner, the statement quoted Javadekar.
However, this is based on the outcomes of the evaluation pointing to potential of the mission to improve the quality of life of rural households and women’s empowerment and given the changed circumstances in the UTs of Jammu Kashmir and Ladakh.
The NRLM, introduced in 2011, is a centrally sponsored programme that aims at eliminating rural poverty through promotion of multiple livelihoods for the rural poor households across the country.
The programme “seeks to reach out to all rural poor households, estimated at about 10 crore households, and impact their livelihoods through universal social mobilization by inter alia organizing one-woman member from each rural poor household into Self Help Groups (SHGs), their training and capacity building, facilitating their micro-livelihoods plans, and enabling them to implement their livelihoods plans through accessing financial resources from their own institutions and the banks,” the statement added.
The Union Minister also stated that due to technical reasons, the program was not widely applicable in the two UTs for the longest time, and very few women were identified for the program from the region.
However, the criteria has now been specially modified for both Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh with the program covering 2/3rd of the rural families in the UTs.
Furthermore, the other distinguishing features of the programme is that it is implemented in a Mission mode by special purpose vehicles with dedicated implementation support units at the national, state, district and block levels, using professional human resources in order to provide continuous and long-term handholding support to each rural poor family.
The DAY-NRLM has been implemented in the erstwhile state of J&K by the Jammu and Kashmir State Rural Livelihoods Mission (JKSRLM) as “Umeed” programme. The Special Package as approved in May 2013, and subsequently extended by a year to up to 2018-19, the statement added.
-RJV
