National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM), the rural development ministry’s restructured self employment and skill development programme, will pay special attention to the empowerment of rural women farmers.

“The Planning Commission has allocated Rs 100 crore for the Mahila Kisan Sashaktikaran Pariyojana (MKSP), a sub-component of the proposed NRLM,” a ministry official told Governance Now.

The objective is to achieve socio-economic and technical empowerment of the rural women farmers, predominantly small and marginal farmers, he said. There are a large number of rural women farmers who are steeped in poverty and have been somehow left out of the BPL list. The MKSP will target these women.

“The MKSP will form self-help groups (SHG) exclusively of rural women farmers and help them in skill development,” said the official.

The ministry’s existing self employment programme, Swarnjayanti Gram Swarojgar Yojna (SGSY), was restructured into NRLM after it was found to be wanting in its goal of poverty alleviation through creation of SHGs. NRLM, which is a mission mode project, is expected to provide greater focus and momentum for poverty reduction to achieve the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) by 2015 through rapid increase in the coverage of rural poor households under self-employment.

In addition to self employment, the Mission will also help in enhancing their capabilities and facilitate access to other entitlements such as wage employment and food security and benefits of the Indira Awas Yojana (IAY), drinking water, land improvement, education, and health and risk mitigation through convergence and coordination mechanism.