Mukhyamantri Nahri Kendra

What is the Mukhyamantri Nahri Kendra scheme?

Mukhyamantri Nahri Kendra is a group livelihood scheme of the Gujarat Tribal Development Corporation, the corporation working under the Tribal Development Department, Government of Gujarat. The Corporation, known locally as the Adijati Vikas Nigam, lists the component in Gujarati as Nahri Kendra and publishes it on adijatinigam.gujarat.gov.in.

The scheme is built on one structural idea. Individual credit is hard for a tribal woman in rural Gujarat to obtain and hard to service alone: she has no collateral, often no independent income record, and a single-person enterprise collapses if she is ill or has family obligations for a month. A Nahri Kendra is instead a shared centre run by eleven tribal women together. The Corporation finances the centre, the women run it collectively, and the earnings and repayment obligations are shared across eleven households rather than resting on one.

According to the Corporation's scheme page, each Nahri Kendra is financed with a Corporation loan of Rs 5.00 lakh carrying 4% interest per annum, with state government assistance recorded alongside the loan component. The centre is aimed at rural tribal women, and centres have been set up across the tribal districts of Gujarat.

Key features

• Group-based: exactly eleven Scheduled Tribe women form one Nahri Kendra.
• Rs 5.00 lakh corporation loan per centre.
• 4% per annum interest. A concessional state rate, not a commercial one.
• State government assistance recorded alongside the Corporation loan.
• Aimed at rural tribal women across Gujarat's tribal districts.
• No application fee at any stage.

The phrase Nahri Kendra is the name readers will see on the Corporation's own Gujarati pages and on scheme lists, and searching for that transliteration is the quickest way to reach the official page.

Who is eligible for a Nahri Kendra?

A group can apply if:

• All eleven members belong to a Scheduled Tribe notified in Gujarat, each holding a valid caste certificate from a competent authority in the state.
• All members are women.
• The members are residents of Gujarat, normally of the same village or cluster of villages, so that the centre can actually be run jointly.
• The group has agreed on a single income-generating activity for the centre and can describe what it will produce or sell.
• The group has, or will open, a bank account in the group's name for disbursement and repayment.
• The members are adults able to enter into a loan agreement.

A group cannot apply if:

• Any member is not from a Scheduled Tribe, or holds a caste certificate from outside Gujarat.
• The group has fewer or more than eleven members. The eleven-member structure is the defining condition of this component.
• An individual woman applies alone. Individual tribal borrowers should look at the Corporation's separate self-employment loan instead, which finances a single applicant.
• Any member is an existing defaulter with the Corporation, a bank or another state lending agency.
• The loan is sought for personal or household consumption rather than for a running centre.
• The group is a paper group formed only to obtain the loan, with the centre actually run by one person or by an outsider. Field verification is designed to catch exactly this.

What documents are required?

Assemble all eleven sets of personal documents before starting the application. A file that arrives at the district office with nine complete member sets and two missing certificates is held up in full, because the group cannot be constituted without every member verified.

How to apply for a Mukhyamantri Nahri Kendra

1. Form the group of eleven Scheduled Tribe women, hold a meeting, and record a written resolution naming the group, its office bearers and the activity the centre will run.
2. Open a bank account in the group's name and collect the caste certificates, Aadhaar cards and residence proofs of all eleven members.
3. Open adijatinigam.gujarat.gov.in and use the Apply for Loan link to reach the Gujarat Tribal Development Corporation loan portal.
4. Register on the portal and select the Nahri Kendra component, then fill in the group details, the member list, the proposed activity and the cost estimate.
5. Upload the group resolution, the members' documents, the bank passbook and the equipment quotations, then submit and save the acknowledgement number.
6. Submit the original documents at the Gujarat Tribal Development Corporation's district office for verification, with all members available for identification.
7. Attend the field verification visit, where district staff confirm that the eleven women are real members, that the premises for the centre exist, and that the activity is workable.
8. On sanction, complete the loan agreement and receive the Rs 5.00 lakh in the group's bank account, then begin operations and repay in the instalments fixed at sanction.

How to apply offline

1. Visit the Gujarat Tribal Development Corporation district office at your district headquarters, or the Tribal Development Department office in the district.
2. Ask for the Nahri Kendra application form and fill it in with the eleven members' details, attaching self-attested copies of every document.
3. Submit the form and collect the dated inward receipt — quote that number in every later follow-up.
4. Make all eleven members available for the verification visit when the district office schedules it.

In practice most Nahri Kendra applications in Gujarat's tribal talukas are completed with help from the district office rather than entirely online, because the group paperwork is easier to check across a counter than to scan and upload.

How do you check the application status?

1. Log in to the loan portal on adijatinigam.gujarat.gov.in with the credentials created at registration and open the group's application.
2. Read the stage shown, submitted, under district verification, before the sanctioning committee, sanctioned, or disbursed.
3. If nothing changes for several weeks, take the acknowledgement or inward number to the district office in person.
4. After sanction, confirm the credit in the group's bank passbook, not in any individual member's account.

Why do Nahri Kendra applications get held up?

• Incomplete member documents. One missing caste certificate stalls the whole group file.
• Group size not eleven. Applications with a different number of members do not fit the component.
• No genuine common activity. A group that cannot describe what the centre will produce or sell fails verification.
• Group bank account not opened, so there is nowhere to disburse the loan.
• A member is an existing defaulter, which the Corporation checks across its own records.
• Field verification finds the centre is nominal, with one person running it and ten names attached.
• Annual target exhausted. The Corporation fixes a limited number of centres each financial year, so a late application may be carried forward.

Money terms in one place

• Loan per centre: Rs 5.00 lakh from the Gujarat Tribal Development Corporation.
• Interest: 4% per annum.
• State assistance: recorded alongside the Corporation loan on the scheme page.
• Group size: eleven Scheduled Tribe women.
• Application fee: nil.
• Repayment: in instalments fixed by the Corporation at sanction, from the group's account.

Where does a group complain?

Grievances go first to the Gujarat Tribal Development Corporation district office holding the file, quoting the acknowledgement or inward number. Where the district office does not resolve the matter, escalate to the Corporation's head office through the contact details on adijatinigam.gujarat.gov.in, and then to the Tribal Development Department, Government of Gujarat.

No fee is payable to anyone to form a Nahri Kendra or to obtain a sanction. Any person demanding money to "get the group approved" is acting outside the scheme, and the group should report it at the district office.