National Rural Livelihood Mission in India Physical and Financial Progress of Punjab

Transcription

1 National Rural Livelihood Mission in India Physical and Financial of Punjab Prabhjot Kaur Research Scholar, Department of Economics, Punjabi University, Patiala Dr. Harvinder Kaur Professor of Economics, Department of Distance Education, Punjabi University,Patiala Introduction Poverty is a widespread problem of developing countries. The poor people lead a life with low income, less access to resources, low expenditure, low education, weak health conditions, no access to justice and lack of necessary needs such as food, clothing and shelter. Poverty is defined on the basis of three approaches monetary approach, basic needs approach and on the basis of capabilities approach, as consumption below a standard, deprivation of the means for satisfying basic needs, and a lack of capabilities respectively. The causes of poverty differ from society to society and even from person to person but the effects are well known and upsetting. Government of India has been using three approaches to reduce the poverty: by achieving higher economic growth to improve standard of living, by implementing Anti-poverty programs and by increasing public expenditure on social areas. Poverty alleviation programs are activated in both rural and urban areas. From a large section of Indian population living in rural areas, most of the people belonging to scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and many others lead a life of below poverty line (BPL families). So, for the betterment of rural poor people time to time many poverty alleviation programs like Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP), Training of Rural Youth for Self Employment (TRYSEM), Development of Women and Children in Rural Areas (DWCRA), Supply of Improved Toolkits to Rural Artisans (SITRA), Ganga Kalyan Yojana (GKY) and Million Wells Scheme (MWS) were launched. All these schemes were merged into Swarnajayanti Gram Swarojgar Yojana (SGSY), centrally sponsored scheme funded by the centre and state in the ratio of 75:25 on April1, The Swarnajayanti Gram Swarojgar Yojana (SGSY) aimed at providing self employment to poor villagers through the establishment of self help groups consisting of members. Activity clusters are established based on the aptitude and skill of the people which are nurtured to their maximum potential. Micro finance is provided by NGOs, banks and financial institutions with an aim to eradicate poverty by improving the self employment opportunities and work generation programs. Objectivesof the study The main objectives of the study are: 1. To trace out the origin of National Rural Livelihood Mission 2. To highlight the salient features of the National Rural Livelihood Mission 3. To analyze the funding pattern of the National Rural Livelihood Mission. 4. To portray the organizational structure of Punjab State Rural Livelihood Mission. 5. To reveal the physical and financial progress of Punjab State Rural Livelihood Mission. Research Methodology This study is based on secondary data. The secondary data have been collected from various magazines, books, journals, Govt. reports and websites etc. 643 Prabhjot Kaur, Dr. Harvinder Kaur

2 Origin of National Rural Livelihood Mission Many studies and reports reveal that Swarnajayanti Gram Swarojgar Yojana (SGSY) improved the economic condition of poor rural people to some extent by raising their family income, provided capacity building, credit facility, technology transfer/up-gradation, marketing and infrastructure development. But recently Swarnajayanti Gram Swarojgar Yojana (SGSY) has been converted into National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) named also as Aajeevika in June, 2011 under the flagship programme of the ministry of Rural Development with the budget of $5.1billion in order to attain some new objectives too. In addition to self employment, the NRLM aims at enhancing their capabilities and facilitate access to other entitlements such as wage employment and food security and benefits of Indira Awas Yojana (IAY), drinking water, land improvement, education, and health and risk mitigation through convergence and coordination mechanism. National Rural Livelihood Mission aims at promoting the self-employment and organizing rural poor people living Below Poverty Line (BPL). The major idea of National Rural Livelihood Mission is to make the SHGs to generate self employment in poor families in rural areas. NRLM has set out with an agenda to cover 7 crore rural poor households, across 600 districts, 6000 blocks, 2.5 lakh villages in the country through self managed SHGs and federated institutions and support them for livelihoods collectives in a period of 5-10 years. Under this mission, self help groups (SHGs) at the village level is constituted in the form of federation and these self help groups provide beneficial self-employment opportunities to the rural people for ensuring better and stable livelihood. This mission gives focus on women, scheduled castes/scheduled tribes, minorities and disabled people with the purpose to include at least one woman member of the identified poor families in self help group. National Rural Livelihood Mission will aim at universal social mobilization and bring all 7crore or 70 million rural below poverty line (BPL) families under the self help groups network in a phased manner over a span of next 10 years. Features of National Rural Livelihood Mission Main features of National Rural Livelihood Mission are: 1. One woman member from each identified rural poor household to be brought under the self help group network. 2. Ensuring 50 percent of the beneficiaries from scheduled castes/ scheduled tribes, 15 percent from minorities, and 3 percent of persons with disability while keeping in view the ultimate target of 100 percent coverage of BPL families. 3. Training for capacity building and skill development. 4. Ensuring revolving fund and capital subsidy. 5. Financial inclusion. 6. Provision of interest subsidy. 7. Backward and forward linkages. 8. Promoting innovations. SGSY remained more successful in Southern states as compared to other regions of India. The mission which started with the name SGSY now has been reformulated as NRLM and aims to cover all the regions of country. Funding Pattern of National Rural Livelihood Mission In order to eligible forfunding pattern under National Rural Livelihood Mission the following conditions are required to be fulfilled by states: 1. State level agencies, district and sub-district level units are to be set-up. 2. Professional staff has to be trained and placed. 3. State level poverty alleviating strategy to be formulated. 644 Prabhjot Kaur, Dr. Harvinder Kaur

3 Punjab State Rural Livelihood Mission (PSRLM) No doubt, Punjab state of India had once enjoyed a dignified status of economically topper state and having the lowest poverty ratio, but since mid eighties, the state has been lagging much behind in these economic terms. During , under ed Public Distribution System 2,88,600 below poverty line families were tried to be covered. As per data given in Economic Survey of Punjab , there are lakh persons (8.26 percent) below poverty line and out of these lakh persons (7.66 percent) belong to rural areas. The percentage of SC population in Punjab is more than most of the states in India. Out of total 88.6 lakh SC population of Punjab and 64.9 lakh belong to rural Punjab. As far as NRLM is concerned the State Government has initiated the process of implementation of NRLM in the state by establishing State Rural Livelihood Mission (SRLM) Society at the State level. As per the guidelines of NRLM, every state has to prepare Initial Action Plan and submit the same to Ministry of Rural Development, Govt of India to start the pilot project. Punjab State Rural Livelihood Mission has prepared Initial Action Plan for 14 blocks in 5 districts of Punjab. Punjab State Rural Livelihood Mission has been covering the 5 districts Tarn Taran (Khadoor Sahib, Valtoha and Chohla Sahib), Gurdaspur (Dhariwal and Dera Baba Nanak), Patiala (Rajpura, Sanaur and Patran), Sangrur (Sunam, Sangrur and Lehragaga) and Ferozepur(Guru Har-Sahai) by providing access to self employment opportunities. However, recently two another districts Muktsar and Bathinda have been included in the mission. The main target of this mission is to reduce poverty by enabling poor households to access gainful self-employment, skilled wage employment opportunities,resulting in appreciable improvements in their livelihoods on sustainable basis through building strong institution of the poor. of Punjab State Rural Livelihood Mission: Physical and Financial The physical and financial progress of NRLM in Punjab is shown in the following table: Table No. 1 of Implementations in Intensive blocks (District-wise) No. of Gram Panchayats No. of Villages of of Gurdaspur Firozpur Patiala Sangrur Tarntaran Total SOURCE: NRLM office, Vikas Bhawan, Phase.8, Sector.62, Mohali (Punjab) It is observed from the table no.1 that the district-wise annual target of total Gram Panchayats andtotal no. of villages to be covered was different for all the five districts. It was highest for Patiala district and lowest and Tarntaran and same for three districts.as compared to annual target the number of Gram Panchayats covered was much higher. progress of NRLM is also same for the no.of Gram Panchayats and no. of villages. But for the Patiala district of Punjab, the target as well as cumulative progress of covering Gram Panchayats is the highest and for TarnTaran district, the lowest. The participation of Patiala and Sangrur is the highest in the functioning of NRLM in Punjab as compared to other districts of Punjab. 645 Prabhjot Kaur, Dr. Harvinder Kaur

4 Table No. 2 Promotion of new SHGs, revival of Dormant/Defunct SHGs and Strengthening of SHGs and Revolving Fund (RF) Support in Intensive Blocks (all Status under NRLM) in five districts of Punjab in Gurdaspur Firozpur Patiala Sangrur TarnTaran Total no. of SHGs under NRLM fold in intensive blocks No.of all SHGs following Panch Sutras Total amount of Saving Mobilized into all SHGs (Amount in Lakh) No.of total SHGs provided with Revolving Fund (RF) Amount of Revolving Fund (RF) provided to all SHGs (in Lakhs) of of of of of SOURCE: NRLM office, Vikas Bhawan, Phase.8, Sector.62, Mohali (Punjab) 646 Prabhjot Kaur, Dr. Harvinder Kaur

5 Table no. 2 shows Promotion of new SHGs, revival of Dormant/Defunct SHGs and Strengthening of SHGs and Revolving Fund (RF) Support in Intensive Blocks (all Status under NRLM) in five districts of Punjab. The performance with regards to total no.of self help groups under NRLM fold in five intensive blocks are better in terms of progress during as against the annual target as the progress is much higher than the target.financial inclusion is most important step involved in poverty eradication from rural areas. Linking all members of self help group to bank and opening the bank account of every member is essential part of NRLM scheme. Total amount of Saving Mobilized into all SHGs of Patiala is more than other districts. As compared to annual target of total amount of saving to be mobilized in the two districts Patiala and Sangrur is much better, while, in other three districts savings mobilized as much less as the target. Total no. of 471 self help groups higher in Patiala against annual target of SHGs and Revolving fund is also increased higher as compared to other districts covered under this mission. Conclusion The implementation of the National Rural Livelihood Mission is in a mission mode, this enables a shift from the existing allocation based strategy to ademand-driven strategy enabling the States to evolve their ownlivelihoods based poverty reduction action plans, besides focusingon targets, outcomes and time bound delivery. NRLM covers more families in Patiala district of Punjab. The amount of saving pattern is less, on the other hand, the Revolving fund is also very less. So, there is need to enhance the amount. References Aktar et. al (2015). Poverty dynamics of rural Punjab and over time changes. The journal of Animal and Plant Sciences, 25(2), Economic Survey of Punjab, Banerjee, Nirmala. and Mittar, Swasti. (1998). Women making a meaning full choice- technology and new economic order. Economic and Political weekly, 33 (51), Economic survey of Punjab, Fields, Gary S. (2014). Self employment and poverty in developing countries. IZA World of Labor, wol.iza.org Gill, Gagandeep Kaur. (2014). Micro finance and poor: a case study of district sangrur. International Journal of Regional Development, 1(1), Gurumoorthy, T.H (2000). Self groups empower rural women. Kurukshtra, 48(5), 36. Hovan, Van Bettina. (2001). Women at work: experiences and identity in rural east germany. Area, 33(1), Kaur, Hardeep. & Kaur, Jasmindeep. (2014). Micro finance in India- a way forward. IIS Univ. Journal of Commerce and Management, 2(1), Kaur et. al (2011). Dynamics in self help groups and banks in Punjab. Agriculture Updates, 6(2), Kaur, Harvinder. (2009). Micro finance and women s empowerment in India. Micro Finance and Rural Development- A Critical Review by Kanak Kanti Bagchi, Abhijeet Publications, Dehli, Kaur, Sumanjeet. (2015). Women empowerment through microfinance: an empirical study of women self help groups in Patiala, district Punjab. International Journal in Commerce, IT and Social Science, 2(2), Pathak, Rasna & Singla, S.K (2015). Impact of self help groups activities concerning micro finance for economic sustainability and growth- an empirical study in ludhiana. International Journal of Management &Technology, 4(5) Punjab Skill Development Mission (2015) Punjab.pdf Prabhjot Kaur, Dr. Harvinder Kaur