National Rural Livelihood Mission (DAY-NRLM) — Meghalaya

What is the National Rural Livelihood Mission in Meghalaya?

National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM), also known as the Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana – National Rural Livelihoods Mission, is the poverty reduction programme that works by organising rural women into Self Help Groups. According to the Community and Rural Development Department, Government of Meghalaya, the mission's objective in the state is to reduce poverty by bringing women together into SHGs so that they can access self-employment and skilled wage employment opportunities.

NRLM in Meghalaya is implemented by the Meghalaya State Rural Livelihood Society (MSRLS), described by the department as an autonomous society. MSRLS delivers the mission through a three-tier structure:

• A state mission unit at MSRLS.
• District Mission Management Units (DMMU) in each district.
• Block-level Mission Management Units (BMMU) at each C&RD block.

The mission is funded on a 90:10 basis between the Central Government and the Government of Meghalaya. The same sharing pattern the department applies to PMAY-G, DDU-GKY and RGSA in the state.

The important thing to grasp about NRLM is what kind of scheme it is. NRLM is not a cash benefit paid to an individual applicant. It is an institution building programme. The unit that receives support is the Self Help Group, and the individual gains through membership of that group, through savings, through internal lending, through the group's access to bank credit, and through the livelihood activities the group and its federations take up.

Who is eligible for NRLM in Meghalaya?

You can join if:

• You are a woman living in a rural area of Meghalaya.
• Your household falls within the poor rural households the mission targets.
• There is an SHG in your habitation, or enough women in your habitation to form one with the Block Mission Management Unit's help.

Membership is village-based and free. The normal practice under the mission is one woman member per household, so that coverage spreads across families in a habitation rather than concentrating in a few. A woman who joins begins by saving a small, regular amount into the group's own corpus. That corpus stays the group's money. It is not a fee, and it is not surrendered to the mission.

You are not eligible and cannot apply if:

• You live in an area classified as urban rather than rural; NRLM covers rural Meghalaya, and urban livelihoods fall under a separate mission.
• You are seeking an individual cash grant paid directly to you. NRLM does not work that way, and any person promising a direct NRLM cash payment in return for a fee is running a fraud.
• You want to join an SHG in a village other than your own. Groups are formed within a habitation because the model rests on members knowing and vouching for each other.

Men are not the target of SHG formation under the mission in Meghalaya, which the department describes specifically as organising women. A household with a male head still benefits through the woman member's group and through the household livelihood activity that follows.

How to apply to join an NRLM Self Help Group in Meghalaya

1. Contact the Block Mission Management Unit (BMMU) at your Community and Rural Development block office, or speak to the community mobiliser or community resource person working in your village. These are the two entry points MSRLS uses to reach households.
2. Ask whether an SHG already exists in your habitation. If one does, request to be introduced to it, groups admit new members where the household is not already represented.
3. If no group exists, gather the interested women of the habitation and ask the BMMU to help form a new SHG. The mission's staff facilitate formation, set the meeting discipline and train the office bearers.
4. Agree the group's rules at the first meetings, the day and place of the weekly meeting, the amount each member saves, who keeps the register, and how internal loans will be decided.
5. Open the group's bank account with the BMMU's help, and start regular savings and regular meetings. Consistency here is what later persuades a bank to lend to the group.
6. Move on to bank linkage and livelihood activity once the group has a record of regular savings, repayment of internal loans and proper bookkeeping. The BMMU guides the group through this stage.

Note that step 5 and step 6 cannot be rushed. Banks lend against a track record, and the record is built by months of regular meetings, regular savings and clean repayment of the group's own internal loans.

What does an SHG member actually get under NRLM?

NRLM delivers through the group in stages, and it is worth being precise about what each stage means rather than quoting numbers that vary by group and year.

Stage one — savings and internal lending. Members save small amounts weekly into a common corpus. The group lends from that corpus to its own members for urgent needs at rates set by the group itself. This is often the first time a household in a remote Meghalaya village has access to credit that is not from a moneylender.

Stage two; capacity building. MSRLS staff and community resource persons train office bearers in bookkeeping, meeting conduct, and the group's own rules. Weak bookkeeping is the single commonest reason a group fails to progress.

Stage three: bank linkage. A group with a clean savings and repayment record becomes creditworthy in its own right and can borrow from a bank as a group. The group, not the mission, decides how the loan is distributed among members.

Stage four: livelihood activity and federation. Groups take up income generating activities suited to their area, for Meghalaya, commonly piggery, poultry, horticulture, broom grass, bee-keeping, weaving and small trade, and are federated into village and cluster level organisations that give them collective bargaining strength.

Alongside this, the mission is the route through which members reach skilled wage employment, including through the placement-linked skilling programme DDU-GKY, which the same department runs for rural youth aged 18 to 35.

What documents do you need to join an SHG in Meghalaya?

The documentation load is deliberately light. NRLM is designed to reach households that typically lack land papers, income certificates and formal employment records, so the mission does not gate membership behind them.

Why SHGs stall under NRLM, and how to fix it

• Irregular meetings. A group that does not meet weekly loses its bookkeeping discipline and its claim to bank linkage. Fix the day and place and hold to it.
• Poor or missing records. The savings register, loan register and minutes book are what a bank inspects. Ask the BMMU for refresher training rather than reconstructing records later.
• Dominance by one or two members. Where a few members take most of the internal loans, repayment discipline collapses. The group's own rules should cap and rotate lending.
• Two members from the same household. Cuts across the one-member-per- household norm and reduces coverage; the BMMU will normally ask the group to correct it.
• Waiting for a grant instead of building a record. Groups that treat NRLM as a queue for free money rarely reach bank linkage. Savings first, credit after.

Where to get help with NRLM in Meghalaya

• Block Mission Management Unit (BMMU) at your C&RD block. The first and most useful point of contact for forming or joining a group.
• District Mission Management Unit (DMMU) at the district headquarters, for issues the block cannot resolve.
• Meghalaya State Rural Livelihood Society (MSRLS), the autonomous society that runs the mission, reachable through the Community and Rural Development Department.
• Community and Rural Development Department, Meghalaya: The Director, Addl. Secretariat Building, Room 316, Shillong 793001, East Khasi Hills District; email cnrd-meg[at]nic[dot]in

Joining an SHG under the mission is free. No official, mobiliser or agent may charge a woman for group membership, for a place in a training programme, or for arranging a bank loan to the group. Any demand for such a payment should be reported to the BMMU and the district unit.