Last Updated on February 15, 2022 at 5:50 pm
National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM), a poverty alleviation project implemented by Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India is focusing on promoting self-employment and organization of rural people especially poor. The basic idea behind this program is to organize the poor into Self Help Groups (SHGs) and make them capable for self-employment.
As per an official statement, in Jammu and Kashmir this programme is being operated as the Jammu-Kashmir State Rural livelihood Mission (JKSRLM) and aims to reduce poverty in the J&K by building strong grassroots institutions of the poor, engage them into gainful livelihood interventions and ensure appreciable improvement in their income on a sustainable basis.
“This programme also aims to enable poor to think positively about himself and his family and reap all the benefits of government schemes which ultimately helps him to live a life full of contentment, happiness, and dignity” the statement says.
JKSRLM’s mandate is to reach out to 66% of the rural population across the125 blocks of Jammu and Kashmir and to provide them sustainable livelihood opportunities and nurture them so that they come out of poverty and appreciate an honourable quality of life.
“The core values which guide all the activities under JKSRLM are inclusion of the poorest and substantial role of the poorest in all the process, transparency and accountability of all processes and institutions, proprietorship and key role of the poor and their institutions in all the stages – planning, implementation and monitoring and lastly community self-reliance and self-dependence” the official statement reads.
In J&K, there are number of projects running under JKSRLM in which Mahila Kisan Sashaktikaran Pariyojana (MKSP) and Start-Up Village Entrepreneurship Programme (SVEP) are making remarkable progress.
MKSP is a sub-component of Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana-NRLM (DAY-NRLM), with an aim to empower women in agriculture. Its objective is to strengthen small agriculturists through promotion of sustainable agriculture practices like Community Managed Sustainable Agriculture (CSMA), Non-Pesticide Management (NPM), Zero Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF), Pashu-Sakhi Model for doorstep Animal Care Services and Sustainable Regeneration and Harvesting of Non-Timber Forest Produce.
