Schemes for Women through Self Help Groups Rs. 5.20 lakh crore bank credit accessed by SHGs under DAY-NRLM from FY 2013-14

New Delhi: The Government is implementing Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana – National Rural Livelihoods Mission (DAY – NRLM) across the country in a mission mode with the objective of organizing the rural poor women into Self Help Groups (SHGs) and continuously nurturing and supporting them till they attain appreciable increase in incomes over a period of time and improve their quality of life and come out of abject poverty. The programme is being implemented in all the States (including Punjab) and Union Territories, except Delhi and Chandigarh. As on 30^th June, 2022, about 8.39 crore rural poor women have been mobilized into more than 76.94 lakh SHGs. In Punjab over 3.4 lakh rural poor women have been mobilized into over 33,500 SHGs.

DAY-NRLM is working on the universal access of the affordable cost-effective reliable financial services to the rural poor SHGs and has now expanded the outreach of interest subvention scheme to all the blocks of the country, which will ease SHG women in accessing credit. From FY 2013-14 an amount of Rs. 5.20 lakh crore bank credit has been accessed by SHGs under DAY-NRLM.

Under the livelihoods component of DAY-NRLM the Ministry is implementing the Start-up Village Entrepreneurship Programme (SVEP) and Mahila Kisan Sashaktikaran Pariyojana (MKSP), as sub-schemes under DAY-NRLM. The objective of SVEP is to help the SHG members to set-up enterprises at the village level in non-farm sectors. About 2.08 lakh enterprises have been formed across 29 States/UTs and 1750 enterprises have been formed under SVEP in Punjab so far. MKSP has the primary objective of empowering women in agriculture by making systematic investments to enhance their participation and productivity, as also create and sustain their agriculture-based livelihoods. About 1.77 crore women farmers have been covered under Farm interventions and in Punjab more than 47,000 women farmers have been covered under these interventions.

The Mission is also working on the social development front among the rural poor creating greater awareness on issues like nutrition, health, sanitation and gender etc. and is also facilitating them to access their entitlements available to them from various Government programmes/schemes.

A statement showing year-wise funds allocated, released and utilized under Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana – National Rural Livelihood Mission (DAY-NRLM), State-wise including Punjab during the last three years and current year is given below.

In order to address the multi-dimensional aspects of social development, the SHGs under DAY-NRLM are intensively involved in awareness generation, behavioural changes and demand generation for services in food, nutrition and sanitation, activities of Poshan Maah, Poshan Pakhwada. All the SHGs are involved in developing the Village poverty reduction Plan to be integrated in Gram Panchayat Development Plan. Further, Gender sensitisation has been undertaken for SHG members in selected blocks in the states and action and intervention on gender issues like child marriages, retention of children in schools, gender based violence etc. has also been initiated. In addition, other departments/schemes of Government of India and State Governments are also utilizing the community based organizations created under DAY-NRLM for last mile delivery of services.

Statement showing details of the central funds allocated, released and utilised during 2019-20 to 2022-23 (Rs. in lakhs)

This information was given by the Union Minister of State for Rural Development, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti in a written reply in Rajya Sabha today.