Canara

Key Features of DAY-NRLM

1. Universal Social Mobilization: To begin with, DAY-NRLM would ensure that at least one member from each identified rural poor household, preferably a woman, is brought under the SHG network in a time bound manner. Subsequently, both women and men would be organized for addressing livelihood issues i.e. farmer’s organizations, milk producers’ cooperatives, weaver’s associations, etc. All these institutions are inclusive and no poor would be left out of them. DAY-NRLM would ensure adequate coverage of vulnerable sections of the society such that 50% of the beneficiaries are SC/STs, 15% are minorities and 3% are persons with disability, while keeping in view the ultimate target of 100% coverage of all households under the automatically included criteria and households with at least one deprivation criterion as per Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC).

2.     Participatory Identification of poor (PIP): DAY-NRLM would undertake a community based process for covering the target beneficiaries i.e. participation of the poor in the process of identifying the target group. Participatory process based on sound methodology and tools (social mapping and well-being categorization, deprivation indicators) and also locally understood and accepted criteria ensures local consensus that inadvertently reduces the inclusion and exclusion errors and enables formation of the groups on the basis of mutual affinity.

The households identified with at least one deprivation criteria as per Socio- Economic and Caste Census (SECC) along with households identified through the P.I.P process would be accepted as DAY-NRLM target group and would be eligible for all the benefits under the programme. The list finalized after P.I.P process would be vetted by the Gram Sabha and approved by the Gram Panchayat.

Till the P.I.P process is undertaken by the State in a particular district/block, the rural households with at least one deprivation criteria as per SECC list would be targeted under DAY-NRLM. As already provided in the Framework for implementation of DAY-NRLM, up to 30% of the total membership of the SHGs may be from among the population marginally above the poverty line, subject to the approval of other members of the group. This 30% also includes the poor households whose name does not figure in the SECC list but are as poor as those included in SECC list.

3.     Promotion of Institutions of the poor : Strong institutions of the poor such as SHGs and their village level and higher-level federations are necessary to provide  space, voice and resources for the poor and for reducing their dependence on external agencies. They empower them and also act as instruments of knowledge and technology dissemination, and hubs of production, collectivization and commerce. DAY-NRLM, therefore, would focus on setting up these institutions at various levels. In addition, DAY-NRLM would promote specialized institutions like Livelihoods collectives, producers’ cooperative/companies for livelihoods promotion through deriving economies of scale, backward and forward linkages, and access to information, credit, technology, markets etc. The Livelihoods collectives would enable the poor to optimize their limited resource.

4.   Strengthening all existing SHGs and federations of the poor: There are existing institutions of the poor women formed by Government efforts and efforts of NGOs. DAY- NRLM would strengthen all existing institutions of the poor in a partnership mode. The self-help promoting institutions both in the Government and in the NGO sector would promote social accountability practices to introduce greater transparency. This would be in addition to the mechanisms that would be evolved by SRLMs and state governments. The learning from one another underpins the key processes of learning in DAY-NRLM.

5.   Emphasis on Training, Capacity Building and Skill Building : DAY-NRLM would ensure that the poor are provided with the requisite skills for managing their institutions, linking up with markets, managing their existing livelihoods, enhancing their credit absorption capacity and credit worthiness, etc. A multi-pronged approach is envisaged for continuous capacity building of the targeted families, SHGs, their federations, government functionaries, bankers, NGOs and other key stakeholders. Particular focus would be on developing and engaging community professionals and community resource persons for capacity building of SHGs and their federations and other collectives. DAY- NRLM would make extensive use of Information, Communication & Technology(ICT) to make knowledge dissemination and capacity building more effective.

6.   Revolving Fund and Community Investment Support Fund (C.I.F): A Revolving Fund would be provided to eligible SHGs as an incentive to inculcate the habit of thrift and accumulate their own funds towards meeting their credit needs in the long-run and immediate consumption needs in the short-run. The C.I.F would be a corpus and used for meeting the members’ credit needs directly and as catalytic capital for leveraging repeat bank finance. The C.I.F would be routed to the SHGs through the Federations. The key to coming out of poverty is continuous and easy access to finance, at reasonable rates, till they accumulate their own funds in large measure.

7.   Universal Financial Inclusion: DAY-NRLM would work towards achieving universal financial inclusion, beyond basic banking services to all the poor households, SHGs and their federations. DAY-NRLM would work on both demand and supply side of Financial Inclusion. On the demand side, it would promote financial literacy among  the poor and provides catalytic capital to the SHGs and their federations. On the supply side, it would coordinate with the financial sector and encourage use of ICT based financial technologies, business correspondents and community facilitators like ‘Bank Mitras’. It would also work towards universal coverage of rural poor against loss of life, health and assets. Further, it would work on remittances, especially in areas where migration is endemic.

8. Funding Pattern: DAY-NRLM is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme and the financing of the programme would be shared between the Centre and the States in the ratio of 60:40 (90:10 in case of North Eastern States including Sikkim; completely from the Centre in case of UTs). The Central allocation earmarked for the states would broadly be distributed in relation to the incidence of poverty in the states.

9.     Phased Implementation: Social capital of the poor consists of the institutions of the poor, their leaders, community professionals and more importantly community resource persons (poor women whose lives have been transformed through the support of their institutions). Building up social capital takes some time in the initial years, but it multiplies rapidly after some time. If the social capital of the poor does not play the lead role in DAY-NRLM, then it would not be a people’s programme. Further, it is important to ensure that the quality and effectiveness of the interventions is not diluted. Therefore, a phased implementation approach is adopted in DAY-NRLM.

10. Intensive blocks: The blocks that are taken up for implementation of DAY-NRLM, ‘intensive blocks’, would have access to a full complement of trained professional staff and cover a whole range of activities of universal and intense social and financial inclusion, livelihoods, partnerships etc. However, in the remaining blocks or non- intensive blocks, the activities may be limited in scope and intensity.

11. Rural Self Employment Training Institutes (RSETIs): RSETI concept is built on the model pioneered by Rural Development Self Employment Institute (RUDSETI) – a collaborative partnership between SDME Trust and Canara Bank. The model envisages transforming unemployed youth into confident self-employed entrepreneurs through a short duration experiential learning programme followed by systematic long duration hand holding support. The need-based training builds entrepreneurship qualities, improves self-confidence, reduces risk of failure and develops the trainees into change agents. Banks are fully involved in selection, training and post training follow up stages. The needs of the poor articulated through the institutions of the poor would guide RSETIs in preparing the participants/trainees in their pursuits of self-employment and enterprises. DAY-NRLM would encourage public sector banks to  set up RSETIs in all districts of the country.