Urban livelihood mission ends March next year, Govt may bring second version

Currently, the mission focuses on creating women’s self-help groups, conducting skill-based training, setting up shelters for the urban homeless and supporting street vendors. The second phase of the mission could include similar groups based on occupation.

While the Mission is set to end in March 2024, the Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry, which is responsible for it, had in June this year signed a three-year MoU with the United Nations Development Programme for collaboration on DAY-NULM.

“Focused on fostering entrepreneurship development and accelerating enterprise growth, the three-year project, extendable beyond 2025, will cover eight cities in the initial phase,” the ministry had said in a statement on June 21.

The UPA government had launched the NULM in 2013 and the scope and name of the Mission was changed by the NDA government in 2016.

As of last week, the ministry had released a budget of Rs 5,387 crore for the DAY-NULM out of the total Central share of Rs 6,404 crore, according to ministry data.

Under the Mission, women’s self-help groups are provided with a revolving fund of Rs 10,000 each to get started. The one-time revolving fund is given to self-help groups to “inculcate the habit of thrift and credit” and forms a part of the corpus for lending along with the group members’ own savings, according to the scheme’s operational guidelines.

More than 89.33 lakh women had been brought under a total of 8.74 lakh self-help groups in the cities. Of these, revolving fund has been disbursed to 6.12 lakh self-help groups.

According to government data, 15 lakh beneficiaries had undergone skill training and 8.20 lakh had been placed in employment. In addition, 8.83 lakh beneficiaries had been assisted to set up their own or group businesses.

For street vendors, the Mission had conducted surveys to identify their number in 3,467 cities. A total of 53.76 lakh vendors had been identified and given letters of recommendation. This also led to 37.52 lakh vendors being issued certificates of vending and 30.99 lakh were issued ID cards, the data shows.