The Union Minister of Rural Development, Panchayati Raj and Mines, Narendra Singh Tomar will confer the National Awards on Best Performing Self Help Groups under Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana – National Rural Livelihood Mission (DAY-NRLM) on Monday, 11th June, 2018. The National Awards to the Self-Help Groups (SHGs) are intended to provide public recognition to the outstanding performance of the community institutions and incorporate a sense of pride among the poor community members. Conferring awards to best performing SHG and Village Organizations was initiated by DAY-NRLM in 2016-17. For the assessment year 2017-18, 34 SHGs have been shortlisted for receiving DAY-NRLM National Awards in an event to be held at A. P. Shinde Hall, PUSA on 11th June, 2018 in Delhi.The DAY-NRLM awards are conferred on the Best Performing Community Based Organizations (Self Help Groups and Village Organizations) after screening the nominations received from the SRLMs. The selection process adopted is that the SHGs are first assessed for their performance on several indicators such as Institution Building-Capacity Building, Financial Inclusion, Livelihoods, Convergence etc. and then nominated by the respective SRLMs for receiving awards. The National Unit of DAY-NRLM then screens the applications thus received and finalizes the awardee list.
The Awards have motivated the State Missions across the country to perform better and it has also brought the programme to the attention to the senior officers in the states. The financial resources leveraged by the Self Help Group members has enabled them to undertake a large ensemble of livelihood activities such as agriculture and allied activities, sheep and goat rearing, horticulture, running of local means of transportation, rearing of milch animals, irrigation development through bore wells, carpentry etc.The SHGs are a perfect example of how livelihoods of households can transform through a collective approach, managed in line with core democratic and financial principles. The SHG has contributed to several community level activities for the common good. These include awareness promotion for constructing household toilets using SBM funds, environmental sanitation, liquid waste management and support for maintenance of village commons.The members are conscious of their social responsibilities and have undertaken several collective activities including campaign against child labour, illicit distillation and child marriages etc. SHG has demonstrated strong features of a progressive community based institution.
The Union Minister of Rural Development, Panchayati Raj and Mines will also launch NRLM Best Practices Compendium and Self Help Group products catalogues for stimulating grass root development. The compendium of 24 select Best Practices under DAY-NRLM will facilitate cross learning from successful implementation and innovation among the State Missions, MoRD has been organizing workshops on Best Practices in DAY-NRLM. The 1st such workshop was organized during Aug 2016 and the document was published in early 2017. The second workshop was organized during Feb, 2018 at New Delhi. A large number of best practices and innovations in the areas of community institutions and capacity building, skill building, financial inclusion, farm and non-farm livelihoods and health and nutrition were present at the second workshop. The document released presents the best practices and innovations for wider dissemination and adaption.A catalogue of SHG products will also be released. The SHGs products catalogue has a range of products made by the SHGs like handmade products, displaying various traditional arts, handlooms – silk and cotton fabrics, applique works etc., handicrafts – wood and clay products, jute items, tribal jewellry, food products, furniture, leather products etc. with the contact nos of the SHGs and the price range. SARAS Aajeevika Mela is an annual event of DAY-NRLM and it aims to provide a platform to the rural artisans to showcase their skills and products and also develop market linkages for their products.