Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana: A Step towards Providing Self-employment to BPL Communities

Name of the scheme: Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY)

Purpose: The main purpose of this scheme is to bring the assisted poor families above the Poverty Line by ensuring appreciable sustained level of income over a period of time.

Strategies:

The SGSY is different from earlier Programmes, in terms of the strategy envisaged for its implementation. It has been conceived as a holistic Programme of self-employment. It covers all aspects of self-employment of the rural poor viz. organisation of the poor in to Self Help Groups (SHGs) and their capacity building, training, selection of key activities, planning of activity clusters, infrastructure build up, technology and marketing support.

Social Mobilisation of the poor:

• The programme focuses on organisation of the poor at grassroots level through a process of social mobilisation for poverty eradication.
• Social mobilisation enables the poor to build their own organisations Self-Help Groups (SHGs), in which they participate fully and directly and take decisions on all issues that will enable them to cross the poverty line.
• An SHG may consist of 10-20 persons belonging to families below the Poverty Line and a person should not be a member of more than one group. In the case of minor irrigation schemes, disabled persons, and in difficult areas i.e. hills, deserts and sparsely populated areas, the number of persons in a group may range from 5-20.
• However, if necessary 20% and in exceptional cases upto 30% of the members in a group may be from APL; (marginally above the poverty line and residing continuously with BPL families) if agreed to by BPL members of the group.

Target Group:

• Families Below the Poverty Line (BPL) in rural areas constitute the target group of the SGSY.
• Within the target group, special safeguards have been provided to vulnerable sections, by way of reserving 50% benefits for SCs/STs, 40% for women and 3% for disabled persons.

Financial Assistance:

• Assistance under the SGSY, to individual or Self Help Groups, is given in the form of subsidy by the government and credit by the banks.
• Subsidy under the SGSY to individuals is uniform at 30% of the Project Cost subject to a maximum of Rs. 7,500/-.
• SC/ST and disabled persons are provided with subsidy of 50% of the Project Cost, amounting to a maximum of Rs.10,000/-.
• For groups of beneficiaries, the subsidy is 50% of the cost of the scheme, subject to per capita subsidy of Rs.10,000/- or Rs.1.25 lakh whichever is less. There is no monetary limit on subsidy for Irrigation Projects and the subsidy is back ended.

Training of Swarozgaris:

• Beneficiaries are known as swarozgaris under this scheme. The scheme seeks to lay emphasis on skill development through well-designed training courses. Those, who have been sanctioned loans, are to be assessed and given necessary training.
• The design, duration of training and the training curriculum is tailored to meet the needs of the identified key activities. The DRDAs will be entitled to meet the expenses, incurred by the training institutions for both Basic Orientation and Skill Development Training from out of the SGSY funds.
• However the total expenditure on Basic Orientation and Skill Development Training will not exceed Rs.5,000/- per trainee. Duration of Skill Development will be decided by the State Government depending upon the activities and skill level of Swarozgaris.

Infrastructure Development:

• The SGSY provides for review of existing infrastructure for the cluster of activities and identification of gaps.
• Critical gaps in investments have to be met from the funds available under the SGSY programme infrastructure, subject to a ceiling of 20% (25% in the case of North Eastern States) of the annual allocation made under the scheme for each District.

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