The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs has approved the proposal for restructuring of the centrally sponsored Scheme of Swarna Jayanti Shahari Rozgar Yojana (SJSRY) in the 12th Plan and as the National Urban Livelihoods Mission (NULM) with an allocation of approximately Rs. 6,405 crore.
The Mission of NULM is to reduce poverty and vulnerability of the urban poor households by enabling them to access gainful self-employment and skilled wage employment opportunities, resulting in an appreciable improvement in their livelihoods on a sustainable basis, through building strong grassroots level institutions of the poor. The mission would also aim at providing shelter equipped with essential services to the urban homeless in a phased manner. In addition, the Mission would also address livelihood concerns of the urban street vendors also by facilitating access to suitable spaces, institutional credit, social security and skills to the urban street vendors for accessing emerging market opportunities.
NULM will rest on the foundation of community mobilization and women empowerment. NULM envisages universal mobilisation of urban poor households into thrift and credit-based Self-Help Groups (SHGs) and their federations/collectives. These groups will serve as a” support system for the poor, to meet their financial and social need.
Under the Mission, City Livelihood Centres (CLCs) will be established in Mission cities to provide a platform whereby the urban poor can market their services and access information on self-employment, skill training and other benefits.
NULM will target the urban poor who are occupationally vulnerable for Employment through Skills Training & Placement (EST&P). The Mission will focus on providing assistance for development / upgrading of the skills of the urban poor so as to enhance their capacity for self-employment and salaried employment. It intends to provide training to the urban poor as per the skill demand from the market, so that they can set up self-employment ventures or secure salaried employment.
Through the Self-Employment Programme (SEP), NULM will provide financial assistance to individuals and groups of urban poor to set up gainful self-employment / micro-enterprise ventures.
The Support to Urban Street Vendors (USV) component will cover a socio-economic survey of street vendors, development of pro-vending urban planning and vendors` markets, credit enablement of vendors, skill development and micro-enterprise development and convergence under various schemes of the Government.
NULM would aim at providing shelter for the urban homeless equipped with essential services. The shelters should be permanent all-weather 24 x 7 shelters for the urban homeless. For every one lakh urban population, provisions will be made for permanent community shelters for a minimum of one hundred persons. Depending upon local conditions each shelter could cater to between 50 and 100 persons.
A mission mode approach in the form of the National Urban Livelihoods Mission (NULM) is considered necessary to organize urban poor in Self Help Groups, creating opportunities for skill development leading to market-based employment and helping them to set up self-employment ventures by ensuring easy access to credit. This will result in the empowerment and dignity of life of the urban poor. The approval of the National Urban Livelihoods Mission (NULM) represents a strategic shift in the Government`s commitment to urban poverty alleviation.
The NULM will be implemented in two phases: Phase I (2013-2017) and Phase II (2017-2022). In Phase I, NULM will target all cities with a population of one lakh or more and district headquarter towns with a population of less than one lakh as per Census of India 2011. However, other towns may be allowed in exceptional cases on the request of the States.
Funding will be shared between the Centre and the States in the ratio of 75:25. For North Eastern and Special Category States (Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura, Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand), this ratio will be 90:10.
Background:
The President of India, in her address to the joint session of Parliament in March 2012 had said: “To secure livelihoods in the urban areas, my Government will soon launch the National Urban Livelihoods Mission for imparting large scale skill up-gradation, enabling entrepreneurship development, and providing wage employment and self-employment opportunities”.
The Draft 12th Five Year Plan says that the NULM entails revamping the guidelines of SJSRY and enhancing its scope. Its basic thrust would be to build capacities and skills in sectors that have growing employment opportunities and are relevant to local socio-economic conditions. In its design the MULM should deal with important issues like financial exclusion, policy and legal exclusion, and lack of access to information and technology, raw materials and markets. It should also develop linkages with the organizations like the National Skills Development Corporation and other private sector organizations including vocational training institutions that can actually train and hire the urban poor to meet their growing capacity needs. In addition, within the umbrella of NULM, a national scheme for support to street vendors and National Programme for Urban Homeless would be launched as a part of the NULM.
