The NRLM, designed to replace the existing Swarnajayanti Gram Swarojgar Yojna, aims at reducing poverty in rural areas through promotion of diversified and gainful self-employment and wage employment opportunities.
The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government at the Centre has decided to replicate the “successful” Rural Development and Self-Employment Training Institute (RUDSETI) at Ujire near Dharmasthala to set up 500 rural self-employment training institutes in each district of the country, a senior official in the rural development ministry told Deccan Herald.
The government hopes to make the NRLM another landmark scheme like the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme.
RUDSETI is an innovative initiative taken up jointly by Sri Dharmasthala Manjunatheswara Education Trust, the Syndicate Bank and the Canara Bank way back in 1982 to motivate unemployed youth to take up self-employment as an alternative career. The institution has 26 centres across 12 states.
Rahul’s visit
AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi had visited the institute’s headquarters at Ujire in 2006 to study its programmes and had said then that a similar institute would be set up in his Amethi parliamentary constituency. The rural development ministry has already constituted a task force headed by former NASSCOM chairman Kiran Karnik to come out with ideas on potential areas that could generate jobs for the rural youth.
Setting up of RSETIs across the country on the lines of RUDSETI is expected to bring more below-poverty-line households in the network of self-employed groups by providing training to the beneficiaries under the proposed NRLM, sources said.
NRLM also proposes to use the existing infrastructure facilities at the district and block levels such as polytechnics, Krishi Vigyan Kendras, Jan Shikshan Sansthans, Khadi and Village Industries Boards and State Institutes of Rural Development for capacity building and orientation programmes.
