The rural development ministry has finally got moving in the direction of restructuring its Swarnjayanti Gram Swarojgar Yojana (SGSY), its ongoing programme for the self-employment of the rural poor, into a mission mode project called National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM).

The ministry has organised a three-day meeting of the rural development secretaries of the state governments and union territories beginning Wednesday in the capital to discuss various issues related to the rollout of the proposed NRLM.

The project has already been delayed by a year. Earlier the expenditure finance committee of the finance ministry which approves the financial outlay for any project had rejected the RD ministry’s proposed budgetary allocation for the Mission, thus further delaying the start of ambitious programme.

The programmes’s implementation that was supposed to have seen the light of the day last financial year (2009-10) will be further delayed. The pre-launch meeting has been scheduled in two batches on Wednesday-Thursday (for 15 states) and on Friday (for 18 states/UTs) for assisting the states in initiating preparations for the transition.

The deliberation over three days is expected to provide an insight into the level of preparedness besides learning and sharing from some of the states that have adopted different models of rural livelihoods programmes and in the process ensure asmooth transition to NRLM.

The meeting is proposed to be followed with a series of regional and state level followup meetings. The objective of the project is to reduce poverty among rural BPL population by promoting diversified and gainful self-employment and wage employment opportunities which would lead to an increase in income on sustainable basis.

The Mission Mode approach under NRLM will ensure shift from the present allocation based strategy to a demand driven strategy, allowing the states to formulate their own poverty reduction action plans taking into account local factors.

The restructuring of the SGSY was proposed after studies by different organizations including National Institute of Rural Development (NIRD), Hyderabad, Bankers Institute of Rural Development, (BIRD) Lucknow, revealed its dismal performance.

The Planning Commission in its midterm appraisal of the 11th Plan last month was also critical of SGSY saying that in most states the self help groups (SHGs) existed only on paper. The restructured self employment programme 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.