Tripura opposed to amalgamation of SGSY and NRLM 

Agartala, Sep 10 : With a strong opposition from Tripura, the Ministry of Rural Development has decided to hold a separate meeting on the issue of amalgamation of Swaranjayanti Gram Swarojgar Yojana (SGSY), a holistic programme for promoting self-employment and National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM). 

Rural Development Minister Jitendra Choudhury said here today that the ministry had proposed to merge both the programmes in a single fold to reduce the complications in implementation as well as to ensure benefit to the rural people. 

''We could not agree with the proposal and felt it needs more discussion and debate well before the decision because the objectives and the nature of implementation of the programme are different,'' Mr Choudhury stated, adding that all other states had also supported it which forced the ministry to step down. 

Mr Choudhury, however, pointed out that the objective of SGSY was to provide sustainable income to the rural poor and it aimed at establishing a large number of micro-enterprises in the rural areas based upon the potential of the rural poor and brought them above the poverty-line within the next three years. 

On the otherhand, NRLM was aimed to provide greater focus and momentum for poverty reduction to achieve the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) by 2015 through rapid increase in the coverage of rural poor households under self-employment programmes besides ensuring drinking water, land improvement, education, health and risk mitigation through convergence and coordination mechanism.