The Centre on Saturday announced renaming of National Urban Livelihood Mission (NULM) as “Deen Dayal Antyodaya Yojana-NULM”, which will now cover all 4,041 statutory urban local bodies in the country.

Introduced in 2013, the programme, which will be named as "Deen Dayal Antyodaya Yojana-Rashtriya Shahri Aajeevika Mission" in Hindi, is being currently implemented in 791 cities across the country covering all district headquarters, cities and towns with a population above one lakh.

NULM seeks to enhance employment opportunities and incomes of the urban poor through skill development and training, setting up of individual and group micro-enterprises, formation of Self-Help Groups, building shelters for homeless, among others.
Now all the states and Union Territories (UTs) have been empowered to implement DAY-NULM in statutory urban local bodies even if they have a population of less than one lakh each, the release said. With this, total 186 towns will be covered under the scheme against the existing 34 towns. Under “Employment through Skill Training and Placement” component of DAY-NULM, an expenditure of Rs 15,000 per person is allowed on training of urban poor which is Rs 18,000 in North-East and Jammu and Kashmir, it said.

Under “Social Mobilisation and Institution Development” through formation of Self-Help Groups for training members and hand holding, an initial support of Rs 10,000 is given for each group. For registered area level federations of such groups, assistance of Rs 50,000 is provided. The urban poor are also assisted with interest subsidy of 5-7 per cent for setting up individual micro-enterprises with a loan of up to Rs 2 lakh and for group enterprises with a loan limit of up to Rs 10 lakh, it said.