Deendayal Upadhyaya Antyodaya Yojana

The Ministry or Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation have modified some guidelines for the Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana.

1. The scheme aims at reducing 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.

2. The mission would also aim to provide the shelter equipped with essential services to the urban homeless in a phased manner.

3. The scheme also address the livelihood concern of the urban street vendors by facilitating with suitable space, institutional credit, and social security and skills to the urban street vendor for accessing emerging market opportunities.

2. Promotion of self-employment through setting up individual micro-enterprises and group enterprises with interest subsidy for individual projects costing Rs.2.00 lakhs and Rs.10.00 lakhs for group enterprises. Subsidized interest rate will be 7%;

3. Training urban poor to meet the huge demand from urban citizens by imparting market oriented skills through City Livelihood Centres. Each Centre would be given a capital grant of Rs.10.00 lakhs.

4. Enabling urban poor form Self-Help Groups for meeting financial and social needs with a support of Rs.10,000/- per each group who would in turn would be helped with bank linkages;

5. Development of vendor markets besides promotion of skills of vendors; and

6. Construction of permanent shelters for urban homeless and provision of other essential services.

 Self Help Groups (SHGs): It envisages mobilisation of urban poor into SHGs, which serve as a support system for the poor, in meeting their financial and social needs. These SHGs are eligible for bank loans and a revolving fund of Rs 10,000 per group. Earlier, SHGs could be formed by women or male handicapped persons, and at least 70% members were required to be urban poor.48 Under the modified guidelines, men involved in vulnerable occupations such as sanitation workers, rag pickers, rickshaw pullers etc., can also form SHGs.

Applications by beneficiaries: Earlier, the applications for availing subsidized loans had to be recommended by SHGs. These loans could be used for setting up individual and group enterprises under the Self Employment Programme. The method of availing loans has been modified to allow beneficiaries to directly send loan applications to the banks. Each state will have one bank designated as the nodal agency. This bank will coordinate with all the other banks to increase banking linkages for loan support.

Shelters for urban homeless: Earlier, these shelters were funded by 75% central government funds, and 25% state funds. Now, these shelters can also be funded through Corporate Social Responsibility funds and other donations. Further, construction of multi-storied shelters for urban homeless has also been permitted.