Aajeevika - National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM)

Aajeevika - National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM) was launched by the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD), Government of India in June 2011. Aided in part through investment support by the World Bank, the Mission aims at creating efficient and effective institutional platforms of the rural poor enabling them to increase household income through sustainable livelihood enhancements and improved access to financial services.

NRLM has set out with an agenda to cover 7 Crore rural poor households, across 600 districts, 6000 blocks, 2.5 lakh Gram Panchayats and 6 lakh villages in the country through self-managed Self Help Groups (SHGs) and federated institutions and support them for livelihoods collectives in a period of 8-10 years. In addition, the poor would be facilitated to achieve increased access to their rights, entitlements and public services, diversified risk and better social indicators of empowerment. NRLM believes in harnessing the innate capabilities of the poor and complements them with capacities (information, knowledge, skills, tools, finance and collectivization) to participate in the growing economy of the country.

NRLM implementation is in a Mission Mode. This enables (a) shift from the present allocation based strategy to a demand driven strategy enabling the states to formulate their own livelihoods-based poverty reduction action plans, (b) focus on targets, outcomes and time bound delivery, (c) continuous capacity building, imparting requisite skills and creating linkages with livelihoods opportunities for the poor, including those emerging in the organized sector, and (d) monitoring against targets of poverty outcomes. As NRLM follows a demand driven strategy, the States have the flexibility to develop their livelihoods-based perspective plans and annual action plans for poverty reduction. The overall plans would be within the allocation for the state based on inter-se poverty ratios.

NRLM Mission

"To reduce poverty by enabling the poor households to access gainful self-employment and skilled wage employment opportunities, resulting in appreciable improvement in their livelihoods on a sustainable basis, through building strong grassroots institutions of the poor."

NRLM Guiding Principles

Poor have a strong desire to come out of poverty, and they have innate capabilities
Social mobilization and building strong institutions of the poor is critical for unleashing the innate capabilities of the poor.
An external dedicated and sensitive support structure is required to induce the social mobilization, institution building and empowerment process.
Facilitating knowledge dissemination, skill building, access to credit, access to marketing, and access to other livelihoods services underpins this upward mobility.

NRLM Values

The core values which guide all the activities under NRLM are as follows:

Inclusion of the poorest, and meaningful role to the poorest in all the processes
Transparency and accountability of all processes and institutions
Ownership and key role of the poor and their institutions in all stages â€“ planning, implementation, and, monitoring
Community self-reliance and self-dependence