The Rural livelihoods Mission Programme has been extended to 107 blocks in 30 districts in the State. The progress of the programme was discussed at the Odisha livelihoods Mission Executive Council meeting held here recently.
Chairing the meeting, Chief Secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi suggested the Odisha livelihoods Mission Authority to encourage woman self help groups for more production based and profitable work. He also suggested the officials for felicitating the associations engaged in production based and profitable projects, apart from grading various self help groups on the basis of the real projects.
Development Commissioner R Balakrishnan, Agriculture and Cooperative Principal Secretary Manoj Ahuja, Women and Child Development Secretary Vishal Dev and other senior officials were present at the meeting.
Panchayatiraj Secretary Deo Ranjan Kumar Singh presented to discuss about providing bank loan and financial aid to the self help groups, producers’ groups and producer companies under Odisha livelihoods Mission programme.
Odisha livelihoods Mission Director Pranab Jyoti Nath said that 107 blocks of 30 districts have been covered under the programme, out of which 33 blocks of eight districts and 55 blocks of 24 districts have been included under the National Rural livelihoods Project (NRlP) and National Rural livelihoods Mission (NRlM), so far. The remaining 19 blocks of six districts have been included under the programme in 2016-17.
While 1,18,434 woman self help groups from 12,094 villages have been provided the financial assistance by end of March last under the programme, the project has been started with an aim to cover 13,680 groups more during 2016-17.
Total 12.54 lakh women beneficiaries in the women self help groups have been benefited by end of March last. Another 1.64 lakh women beneficiaries will be added under the scheme during 2016-17 fiscal year. These self help groups were allocated Rs112.66 crore for various livelihoods projects by end of March. The Government has allocated Rs 10.55 crore more during 2016-17 for the projects.
Besides, the self help groups had been provided Rs243.68 crore community investment fund by end of 2015-16 fiscal. Several projects have been undertaken to provide Rs34.32 crore community investment funds more during this fiscal, sources said.
Total Rs2,212.25 crore-annual work schedule has been prepared under NRlM (Rs79.27 crore) and NRlP (Rs132.98 crore) for the fiscal 2016-17.
Especially, skill development, livelihood aid, technical skill, coordination, project implementation assistance, infrastructure development, sale and interest rebate are included under the programme. Besides, other programmes like woman development empowerment and entrepreneur start-up in rural areas have been started under the scheme.
Constituting more numbers of women self help groups by organizing extensive information broadcasting and awareness programmes in panchayat level, formation of federation in panchayat level, providing training to the members, gradation of self help groups, providing bank loan and financial assistance were emphasized at the meeting.