Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Antyodaya Yojana – DAY-NULM

Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Antyodaya Yojana (DAY) is a government scheme which aims to uplift the urban and rural poor folks through skill development and enhancing the sustainable livelihood opportunities. One of the objectives of ‘Make in India’ is skill development, which helps in the socio-economic betterment of the country. This scheme facilitates the objective of ‘Make in India’. The Government of India has provided Rs.500 crore for this scheme. This scheme is the integration of –

• National Urban Livelihoods Mission (NULM)
• National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM)

DAY-NULM

Deen Dayal Antyodaya Yojana – National Urban Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NULM) is implemented to reduce poverty and vulnerability of urban poor households. The Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation (HUPA) launched this scheme. This scheme enables the urban poor to access gainful self-employment and skilled wage employment opportunities.

The employment of the urban poor will result in improving their livelihoods on a sustainable basis and builds strong grassroots level institutions of the poor. This scheme also aims at providing shelters equipped with essential services to the urban homeless. It also addresses the livelihood concerns of the urban street vendors by facilitating access to them of institutional credit, suitable spaces, skills for accessing the market opportunities and social security.

Mission of DAY-NULM

DAY-NULM believes that the poor have an innate desire to come out of poverty. They have an entrepreneurial spirit. The challenge is to unleash the capabilities of the poor to generate meaningful and sustainable livelihoods. DAY-NULM aims to motivate the urban poor to form their institutions which will be provided with sufficient capacity to manage the external environment, expand their skills, access finance, assets and enterprises.

DAY-NULM aims to provide support to the poor from the national level to the city level, which is required for managing their institutions. Any livelihood promotion programme can be escalated in a time-bound manner only if it is driven by the poor and their institutions. Such a robust institutional platform supports the poor in building their human, financial, social and other assets.

Strong institutional platforms enable them to access rights, opportunities, entitlements and services from both the public and private sectors, which enhances their solidarity, voice and bargaining power.

Features of DAY-NULM

DAY-NULM has various components which provide various support to the urban poor. The various components are-

• Social Mobilisation and Institution Development

DAY-NULM envisages social mobilisation of urban poor into Self-Help Groups (SHGs) and their federations. These groups serve as a support system for the poor to meet their financial and social needs. DAY-NULM lays specific importance on the mobilisation of vulnerable sections of the urban population such as SCs, STs, minorities, persons with disabilities, beggars, domestic workers, rag pickers etc. A maximum of Rs.10,000 can be spent for one SHG for its formation, training of all the members, bank linkage and other related activities.

• Capacity Building and Training

Capacity Building and Training establish timely and high-quality technical assistance at Central, State and City levels to implement DAY-NULM. At the centre, a National Mission Management Unit (NMMU) will be established. Support will be provided to the States and Cities for setting-up of a State Mission Management Unit (SMMU) and City Mission Management Unit (CMMU).

The SMMU and CMMU will be supported for the development of efficient institutional systems like HR, financial management, social management and procurement. The funding for SMMU and CMMU will be only for five years. The ceiling amount which can be used for training and capacity building at the Centre, State or City level will be Rs.7,500 per trainee.

• Employment Through Skills Training and Placement

Employment through Skills Training and Placement provides training to the urban poor according to the skill demand from the market, so that they can set up their self-employment ventures or obtain secure salaried employment. There is no minimum or maximum educational qualification prescribed for the selection of beneficiaries under this component. The cost per beneficiary shall not be more than Rs.15,000.

The cost per beneficiary shall not be more than Rs.18,000 for North-Eastern and the Special Category States. Skill training is linked to accreditation and certification. Training is preferably undertaken on a Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) mode involving reputed institutes like ITIs, NITs, Polytechnics, engineering colleges, management institutes and other reputed entities in government, private and civil society sectors.

• Self-Employment Programme

The Self-Employment Programme focuses on providing financial assistance to individuals or groups of urban poor to set up gainful self-employment ventures or micro-enterprises as per their skills, aptitude, training and local conditions. The unemployed and under-employed urban poor will be encouraged under this programme for setting up of small enterprises relating to servicing, manufacturing and petty businesses which have considerable local demand.

There is no minimum or maximum educational qualification prescribed for the selection of beneficiaries. The ceiling of project cost for which support is provided is Rs.2 lakh for individual enterprises and Rs.10 lakh for group enterprises. Interest subsidy of above 7 per cent rate of interest will be provided on a bank loan to set up an individual or group enterprise.

• Support to Urban Street Vendors

This component aims to provide skills to street vendors, supporting micro-enterprise development, and credit enablement. It also provides for supporting social security options to the vulnerable groups such as women, SCs/STs and minorities. Up to 5 per cent of the total budget of DAY-NULM will be spent on this component. Street Vendors will be supported to access basic banking services and social security benefits available to them under the various Government schemes.

The poor street vendors in urban areas can also access skill training under the ‘Employment through Skills Training and Placement’ component. They can access the support for the development of micro-enterprise under the ‘Self-Employment Programme’.

• Scheme of Shelter For Urban Homeless

The main objective of the Scheme of Shelter for Urban Homeless is providing shelters and all other necessary services to the poorest of the poor segment of urban societies. The shelters are permanent shelters for the urban homeless. For every one lakh urban population, provisions would be made for permanent community shelters for a minimum of one hundred persons. Depending upon the local conditions, each shelter could cater between 50 to 100 persons.

The basic common facilities and amenities such as water, electricity, kitchen, sanitation, etc., will be provided at the shelters. The Government of India will provide funds up to 60 per cent of the cost of construction of the shelters, and the remaining 40 per cent will be the State contribution. In the case of North-Eastern states, the funding ration of centre and state will be 90:10. In respect of UTs, the Government of India will contribute 100% of the cost.

Implementation of DAY-NULM

States or UTs are required to send Monthly Progress Reports or Quarterly Progress Reports in prescribed formats regarding targets and achievements under DAY-NULM. The States or UTs will establish a monitoring mechanism regarding the progress of various components of DAY-NULM. The monitoring activities will include third party evaluation, social audit, impact evaluation studies, etc. The Mission Directorate in the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs will issue a set of detailed operational guidelines for each component and sub-component of DAY-NULM for effective implementation, operationalisation and monitoring.

DAY-NRLM

The Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) launched Aajeevika – National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM) in June 2011. This programme aims at creating effective and efficient institutional platforms for enabling the rural poor to increase their household income through sustainable livelihood and improved access to financial services. Under this programme, an agenda is set out to cover seven crore poor rural households across 600 districts, 2.5 lakh Gram Panchayats and 6 lakh villages.

This programme provides help to the rural poor through self-managed Self Help Groups (SHGs) and federated institutions to support them for livelihood collectives in a period of 8-10 years. This programme facilitates the poor to achieve increased access to rights, public services, entitlements and better social indicators of empowerment. This programme was renamed as Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana – National Rural Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NRLM) in November 2015.

Mission of DAY-NRLM

The mission of DAY – NRLM is to reduce poverty by providing access to self-employment and skilled wage employment opportunities which result in improvement of their livelihoods on a sustainable basis. This programme focuses on capacity building, imparting requisite skills and creating linkages with livelihood opportunities for the poor, which includes the poor emerging in the organised sector.

The overall plan in this programme will be within the allocation for the state based on inter-se poverty ratios. It follows a demand-driven strategy and the states have the flexibility to develop their annual action plans and livelihoods based perspective plans for poverty reduction.

Features of DAY-NRLM

• Universal Social Mobilisation

Under this programme, at least one woman member is brought under the Self Help Group (SHG) network from each identified rural poor household in a time-bound manner. This programme gives special emphasis to vulnerable communities such as bonded labourers, manual scavengers, persons with disabilities and victims of human trafficking. Special strategies are devised under this programme to reach out to these communities and help them to overcome poverty.

• Participatory Identification of Poor (PIP)

The Target Group under DAY-NRLM is determined by an equitable and transparent process of Participatory Identification of Poor (PIP) method at the level of the community. All households identified as poor through the PIP methods are the Target Group which are eligible for all the benefits under this programme.

The NRLM Target Groups identified through PIP are de-linked from BPL. The efforts to roll-out PIP have begun in the states. The PIP process is conducted at frequent intervals in the villages for revising the list of poor households. The households identified as poor through the PIP method are scrutinised by the Gram Sabha and approved by the Gram Panchayat. The households under PIP list are eligible to receive all benefits of DAY – NRLM.

• Community Funds as Resources in Perpetuity

DAY – NRLM provides a Revolving Fund and a Community Investment Fund as resources in perpetuity to the institutions of the poor for strengthening their institutional and financial management capacity and for building their track record to attract mainstream bank finances.

• Financial Inclusion

DAY – NRLM works on both the demand and supply side of the financial inclusion. It provides catalytic capital to the SHGs and their federations and promotes financial literacy among the poor on the demand side. It coordinates with the financial sectors and encourages the use of Information, Communication & Technology (ICT) based financial technologies, business correspondents and community facilitators like ‘Bank Mitras’ on the supply side. It also works to provide universal coverage for the rural poor against the risk of loss of life, assets and health.

• Livelihoods

DAY- NRLM focuses on promoting and stabilising existing livelihoods of the poor through its pillars of ‘vulnerability reduction’, ‘livelihoods enhancement’, ‘employment’ and ‘enterprises’. Through enhancement and expansion of existing livelihood options and tapping new opportunities in farm and non-farm sectors, the ‘livelihood enhancement’ is done.

By building skills for the job markets outside, ‘employment’ is achieved. DAY – NRLM also supports and promotes collectives towards ‘Sustainable Livelihoods of the Poor’ through which its members can get access to livelihood skills, knowledge, technology, products and support from SHGs to individual members or households.

• Convergence and Partnerships

DAY – NRLM has convergence with other programmes of the Ministry of Rural Development and programmes of state governments that develop alliances directly or indirectly with institutions of the poor. It has partnerships with Non-Government Organisations and other Civil Society Organisations. It also has a beneficial working relationship between Panchayats and institutions of the poor, especially at the level of Village Panchayats for exchange of mutual advice, support and sharing of resources.

• Sensitive Support Structures

DAY – NRLM has set up dedicated support structures at the National (NMMU), State (SMMU), district (DMMU) and sub-district levels (BMMU/PFT). These structures have suitable linkages with Governments, Panchayat Raj Institutions and District Rural Development Agencies. The institutions of the poor and other social capitals will also provide support in implementing this programme. The National Rural Livelihoods Promotion Society is set up under the Societies’ Registration Act of 1860 to implement the DAY – NRLM effectively.

Implementation of DAY-NRLM

The implementation of DAY-NRLM is spread over ten years. It intends to work in a block. A block will have about 13,500, i.e., 90% of the total poor households spread over 100-120 villages divided into 4 clusters of 30 villages each.

Implementation of the blocks is being done in four ways, i.e., Resource Blocks, Intensive Blocks, Partnership Blocks and Non-Intensive Blocks. Resource Blocks operate with support from the National Resource Organization. Intensive Blocks are implemented with internal community resource persons. Partnership Blocks are operated with the local community federations and NGO partners. Non-Intensive Blocks are the blocks in the state which are not taken up for implementation in the initial phase.