30-Dec-2022: Ministry of Rural Development launches Prajjwala Challenge inviting ideas, solutions and actions to transform rural economy

With an aim to invite ideas, solutions and actions that can transform rural economy, the Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana - National Rural Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NRLM) has launched the Prajjwala Challenge. It is one of the platforms where ideas are invited from individuals, Social Enterprises, Start up, Private Sector, Civil Society, Community Based Organization, Academic Institution, Start-ups, Incubation centres, Investors etc. having potential to transform the rural economy.

The Prajjwala Challenge was launched by Secretary, Ministry of Rural Development, Shri. Shailesh Kumar Singh in New Delhi yesterday. The Mission is looking for ideas and solutions around Innovative Technology Solution, Inclusive Growth, Value Chain Interventions, Enhanced Women Entrepreneurship, Cost effective Solutions, Sustainability, place-based employment, localised models etc. The broad contours fall into following categories:

Focus on Women and Marginalized section of community

1. Localised Models
2. Sustainability
3. Cost Effective solutions
4. Multi sectoral ideas and solutions etc.

Applications are open from 29th December, 2022 to 31st January, 2023. Shortlisted ideas will be acknowledged by the Mission and will be provided mentorship support from an expert panel and incubation support to scale up. The top 5 ideas will be rewarded with Rs. 2 Lakh each. Applicants can visit the website www.prajjwalachallenge.com and apply.

DAY-NRLM is one of the flagship poverty alleviation programs of the Ministry of Rural Development, which aims at creating efficient and effective institutional platforms of the rural poor, enabling them to increase household income through sustainable livelihoods enhancements and improved access to financial services. The mission focuses for livelihood augmentation through:

The Mission so far has mobilised more than 87 Million women in to the Self Hep Groups and their federations. While much headway has been made in mobilization of women and financial inclusion, deepening, enhancing and expanding Livelihoods intervention ensuring sustainable income is one of the focus of Mission. This requires creating facilitative ecosystem for multiple stakeholders like Government, Civil Society, Community Based Organisation, Industry, Academia, Private Sector, Start Ups etc. to come together and work in collaboration with each other for transforming the rural economy and creating life advancement opportunities in Rural India for socio economic prosperity.

Prajjwala Challenge launch ceremony was attended by Shri Charanjit Singh, Additional Secretary (RL), senior officers of the Ministry, key State Mission Directors of State Rural Livelihoods Missions, Start-ups, incubators and NGO representatives.

The Prajjwala Challenge will also be shared in the Manthan portal by the office of Principal Scientific Advisor and in the BIMTECH- Atal Innovation Mission Portal for reaching out to larger number of applicants.

12-May-2022: Collaboration between MoRD and Amazon for online marketing of SHG products through MoU Signing and Exchange

An MoU between Ministry of Rural Development and Amazon Seller Services Private Limited (Amazon) was signed at Krishi Bhawan, New Delhi today in presence of Shri Giriraj Singh - Union Minister of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj Department and Shri Nagandra Nath Sinha, Secretary- Rural Development.

The following members signed and exchanged the MoU:

• Sh. Charanjit Singh, Joint Secretary-RL-1, Ministry of Rural Development
• Sh. Sumit Sahay - Director, IN Marketplace Business, Amazon Seller Services Private Limited

During the course of signing of MoU, Union Minister Shri Giriraj Singh stressed on translating the MoU between MoRD and Amazon to achieve sales on the platform and ensuring that the maximum number of women artisans become 'lakhpati'. He also suggested that both Amazon and MoRD should identify the challenges with the existing products, their packaging and branding.  The Minister also said that the MoU between MoRD and Amazon is a first step and should be followed by regular monitoring of the engagement to ensure results that are envisaged in the MoU.

It is envisaged that this alliance will enable SHG entrepreneurs under NRLM to offer their products to the buyers across India through Amazon Saheli Storefront and help SHG women achieve good price for their varied products.

To further facilitate the marketing of SHGs products, NRLM is creating alliance with Amazon Saheli and both the entities signed a non-Financial MoU to offer SHG women the Storefront of Amazon Saheli.  This will open new platform for making SHG products available to all Indian buyers at Amazon.

Following are the salient features of the MoU signed today for supporting the SHG products selling through Amazon Saheli Store front platform:

• Amazon & MoRD will jointly enable Commercial and social development of women led rural enterprises across identified States/UTs
• Amazon will provide Training & Onboarding support to MoRD appointed sellers to list products from Self Help Groups (SHGs) associated with MoRD on Amazon.in
• Amazon will offer Referral fee waiver, imaging & cataloging and account management support at launch to mitigate cold start for SHGs
• Amazon will help market and promote products listed by SHGs through the Saheli Storefront, Social media, Events and Onsite merchandising
• MoRD (through respective SRLM) will help identify and apprise GST verified sellers to sell on Amazon.in, and assist the sellers in securing GST, PAN etc.
• MoRD & Amazon will conduct joint workshops for awareness creation and assist the sellers in listing their products and to unlock growth levers to grow their business on Amazon.in

DAY-NRLM has taken a number of steps to support SHGs in accessing markets for their products. There have been efforts by States/UT's also in getting SHGs products registered on e-commerce platforms. e.g., Flipkart, Amazon and Meesho etc. This includes dedicated web-portals managed by some of the States. The potential e-commerce platforms have been explored and specific provision such as “the Saras Collection” has been created at Government e-Marketplace (GeM) for NRLM SHGs to on-board their curated products.  As on April 30, 2022, a total of 1088 products have been uploaded at GeM by 455 SHGs/ SHG members. Similarly, there are 445 products from 114 SHG sellers on boarded on Flipkart representing 14 States.

13-Mar-2022: Ministry of Rural Development organizes ‘Gender Samvaad’

Over 3000 State Mission staff and Self-Help Group (SHG) members logged in from 34 states to attend the third edition of ‘Gender Samvaad’ organised by the Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana-National Rural Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NRLM), Ministry of Rural Development on the 11th of March 2022. It is a national virtual initiative under the DAY-NRLM to generate greater awareness on the mission’s interventions across the country with a gender lens. The Gender Samvaad is organized in collaboration with the Initiative for What Works to Advance Women and Girls in the Economy (IWWAGE). The third Gender Samvaad was supported by PCI and Roshni Centre. The theme for this edition was ‘Promotion of food and nutrition security through women’s collectives’. The event was organized as a part of Ministry’s Iconic Week celebration theme ‘Naye Bharat ki Naari’ under Amrit Mahotsava.

The event enabled National and State Rural Livelihoods Missions (SRLM) to listen to voices from SHG women and for SRLMs to share and learn from best practices. Addressing the online gathering, Shri Nagendra Nath Sinha, Secretary, MoRD highlighted the potential of women collectives to support behaviour change and access to services. “SHG women across the country played an important role in raising awareness on COVID-19 amongst over 5.5 crore rural households,” he said.

Smt. Nita Kejriwal, Joint Secretary, MoRD shared the Ministry’s perspective and initiatives on interventions related to Food, Nutrition, Health and WASH (FNHW). “SHGs under the DAY-NRLM are working on multiple interventions to fight malnutrition including income enhancement of rural households, improving productivity, and diversification of nutrient rich food crops and social and behaviour change communication (SBCC) among SHG members,” she said.

Dr Vinod Kumar Paul, Member, NITI Aayog, highlighting the ways in which SHGs can work with specific target groups across the life cycle said “SHG women can promote behaviour change, counsel women on care of low-birth weight babies, promote girl’s education, healthy diets, consumption of micronutrients, marriage at the right age, as well as spacing between pregnancies.” He also explained the concepts of malnutrition and infant and young child feeding and care practices effectively.

Shri Dhrijesh Tiwari, Statistical Advisor, Ministry of Women and Child Development spoke about the various initiatives undertaken by the Ministry for women and child nutrition. Smt. Meeta Rajivlochan, Member Secretary, National Commission for Women focussed on women nutrition issues and highlighted their rights and entitlements in this regard. Dr. Kalyani Raghunathan, IFPRI presented the findings of studies conducted on impact of related food and nutrition interventions through women collectives.

The State Mission Directors and Community Resource Persons from SRLMs of Bihar, Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh made presentations on how they aim to integrate FNHW activities into the regular activities taken up by SHGs under DAY-NRLM. CEO, Bihar SRLM shared about SBCC approaches and promotion of nutrition-sensitive agriculture to supplement and diversify food groups available at home. CEO, Maharashtra SRLM presented their work on promotion of nutrition security through nutri-based enterprises and campaigns on nutri-gardens, while CEO, Chhattisgarh SRLM shared their learnings and experience of discussions in group meetings and engaging male members along with women for maternal nutrition interventions.

15-Dec-2021: Strategy for Poverty Alleviation in Rural Areas

Multi-pronged strategies are being taken by the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) to address rural poverty and improve the economic well-being of the people in rural areas with the main focus on increasing livelihood opportunities, empowering rural women, providing social safety net, skilling of rural youth, infrastructure development, increasing land productivity etc. through programmes of Department of Rural Development, viz., Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana – National Rural Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NRLM), Deen Dayal Upadhyay – Gramin Kaushalya Yojana (DDU-GKY), Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana – Gramin (PMAY-G), Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY), Shyama Prasad Mukherjee National Rurban Mission (SPMRM) and National Social Assistance Programme (NSAP), and programmes of Department of Land Resources, viz., Watershed Development Component of Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana (WDC-PMKSY).

MoRD accords emphasis on proper implementation of all its rural development schemes. In order to ensure that the programme benefits reach the rural poor, the Ministry has evolved a comprehensive multi-level and multi-format system of monitoring and evaluation of the implementation of rural development programmes, including Performance Review Committee Meetings, District Development Co-ordination and Monitoring Committee (“DISHA”) meetings, National Level Monitors (NLMs), Area Officers Schemes, Common Review Mission, Concurrent Evaluation and Impact Assessment Studies. Social Audits are also conducted by some schemes like Mahatma Gandhi NREGS and PMAY-G. Third-Party evaluation of the schemes is also carried out regularly and actions, as appropriate, are taken on the findings. In addition to above, steps have also been taken to strengthen transparency and accountability using transaction based IT systems for MIS which include geo-tagging of assets, Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT), National electronic Fund Management System (Ne-FMS), Aadhaar Based Payment System (ABPS), Software for Estimate Calculation using Rural rates for Employment (SECURE) and establishment of independent social audit units and appointment of Ombudsman. State specific reviews of States/UTs are also undertaken from time to time. Further, the Ministry monitors the disposal of public grievances as well as reports in media on the status of implementation of schemes.