Bihar govermment cover 1.25 crore Household in 38 districts under BRLP-Jeevika

 “The JEEViKA project is creating space for the poor and generating self-respecting and self-confident women,”

 

PATNA: Bihar government plans to cover 1.25 crore households in all the 38 districts under the Bihar Rural Livelihood Project, Jeevika, in the next ten years.

The World Bank-aided programme is a community-driven rural development project for the uplift of rural poor. At present, 5.8 lakh rural households in the state are covered under the programme. 

 

Bihar Rural Livelihoods Project Gives New Lease of Life ...

The government also plans to extend the project from five districts to all the 38 districts and increase the number of self help groups (SHGs) from 51,500 to 10 lakh in the next ten years, said Debraj, the project director of Jeevika.

Talking to the TOI, he said the bank linkage to the rural households and the SHGs would be increased from Rs 120 crore to Rs 12,000 crore in the next ten years.

CM Nitish Kumar was so impressed by the success of the project that he had announced at a national workshop on women empowerment here a couple of months back to extend Jeevika to all the districts for the benefit of the rural poor in order to bring a positive change in rural economy of Bihar. World Bank consultant, Vinay Kumar, also commended the Jeevika success in Bihar at the Rural Economic Development Summit organized here on May 24 by the Indian Chamber of Commerce (ICC). He said Bihar was leading the way under the National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) by creating integrated development structure, including institutional platforms, for the poor by making them access to banks for getting finance for their enterprises. Debraj said Jeevika was a success in the socioeconomic empowerment programme for the rural poor through self-managed community-driven institutions. The project was not only providing food security to the rural poor but also ensuring their social, financial and economic inclusion in the mainstream of the society, he said.

The Jeevika project director said the NRLM is a livelihood mission to cover the maximum number of rural poor below poverty line (BPL) and above poverty line (APL) through their self-managed community institutions. Building community cadre at different levels is the essence of this mission, he said. It works under a community development model to build up a social capital and economically vibrant rural population, he said. Community learning is important for the success of the project, he said.

Debraj said the Jeevika project helped in breaking the vicious cycle of moneylenders in rural Bihar by playing the role of a catalyst in the economic growth of the rural people at micro-level. Community-level small enterprises have raised the economic status of the rural people, he said.

He also said the President of India has asked for a Jeevika presentation at the Rashtrapati Bhavan.

The government also plans to extend the project from five districts to all the 38 districts and increase the number of self help groups (SHGs) from 51,500 to 10 lakh in the next ten years, said Debraj, the project director of Jeevika. He said the bank linkage to the rural households and the SHGs would be increased from Rs 120 crore to Rs 12,000 crore in the next ten years.