Fight against poverty in rural India: Lessons from a focal poverty eradication scheme, Swaranjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY)

Ananth P¹* and Periakaruppan P²

1ICSSR-Post Doctoral Fellow, Department of Political Science, School of Social Sciences, Madurai Kamaraj University, Madurai-21. TN. India.

2Professor and Head, Department of Political Science, School of Social Sciences, Madurai Kamaraj University, Madurai-21. TN. India.

*Corresponding Author E-mail: drpananth@gmail.com, Mobile; (0)+91-99657 77521

Accepted 05 June, 2013

Abstract

The Swarnajayanthi Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY) is a holistic programme which looms towards poverty eradication in rural India through creation of self-employment opportunities to the rural people. The scheme aims to bring every assisted poor family above the poverty line by ensuring appreciably sustainable levels of income over a period of time. This objective is to be achieved by organizing the rural poor in to Self Help Groups through the process of social mobilization, their training and capacity building, and provision of income generating assets. There are many Centrally Sponsored Schemes are available for poverty reduction. Of them, Swarnajayanthi Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY) is one of the merger programmes that replaced Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP) for the rural development. This scheme has gained a significant role in alleviation of poverty by generating employment opportunities. One the above backdrop, the present study is undertaken to analyze the effectiveness of this scheme.

Keywords: Yojana, Poverty Alleviation, Self-Employment, Self Help Groups, Below Poverty Line.