NEW DELHI: The government on Wednesday decided to extend Deen Dayal Antyodaya Rashtriya Ajeevika Mission, a scheme, which is run to provide livelihood opportunities to women in rural areas, to the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh to its full scale.
A decision to this effect was taken at a meeting of the Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, said Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar.
“In J&K and Ladakh, women were not getting proper benefit. It has now been decided that in both the UTs, two third of the families in the rural areas will be covered under the scheme. Rs 520 crore have been allocated for the scheme, which will run for five years. Over 10.58 lakh family members will benefit from the scheme,” said Javadekar.
There are 63 lakh self-help groups in the country, in which there are about seven crore women members and they have taken loans to the tune of Rs 3 lakh crore and they are repaying the loans. The NPA is only 2.3 per cent, which is almost negligible, said the Minister.
“The outstanding loans amount is about Rs 1 lakh crore. The Modi government envisages to take the scheme to 10 crore women. In J&K and Ladakh, where not many women were getting registered, now 10 lakh women will be covered under the scheme,” he said.
The National Rural Livelihood Mission aims to support rural women through self-help groups.