Swarna Jayanti Shahari Rozgar Yojana

With a view to provide gainful employment to the urban unemployed and underemployed through encouraging the setting up of self-employment ventures or provision of wage employment, a new urban poverty alleviation programme, namely, Swarna Jayanti Shahari Rozgar Yojana (SJSRY) was launched by the Government of India on 01.12.1997.

This scheme subsumed the earlier three urban poverty alleviation programmes, namely Urban Basic Services for the Poor (UBSP), Nehru RozgarYojana (NRY) and Prime Minister’s Integrated Urban Poverty Eradication Programme (PMIUPEP).

An independent evaluation of SJSRY was carried out by the Ministry of Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation in 2006 to assess the impact of the scheme in improving the conditions of the urban poor. Based on the study findings, lessons learnt in implementation and feedback received from State Governments, Urban Local Bodies and other stakeholders, a revision of the Guidelines of the SJSRY scheme has been made, with effect from the year 2009-2010.

The main objectives of the new revamped SJSRY are:

• Addressing urban poverty alleviation through gainful employment to the urban unemployed or underemployed poor by encouraging them to set up self-employment ventures (individual or group), with support for their sustainability; or undertake wage employment;

• Supporting skill development and training programmes to enable the urban poor have access to employment opportunities opened up by the market or undertake self employment; and

• Empowering the community to tackle the issues of urban poverty through suitable self managed community structures like Neighbourhood Groups (NHGs), Neighbourhood Committees (NHC), Community Development Society (CDS), etc.

SJSRY have five major components, namely-

a) Urban Self Employment Programme (USEP) aims at providing gainful employment to urban  youth.

b) Urban Women Self-help Programme (UWSP) aims at providing assistance by way of subsidy to urban poor women for setting up gainful group enterprises with SHG-Bank linkage.

c) Skill Training for Employment Promotion amongst Urban Poor (STEP-UP) focus on providing assistance for skill formation/ upgradation of the urban poor to enhance their capacity to undertake self-employment as well as access better salaried employment.

d) Urban Wage Employment Programme (UWEP) aims at providing wage employment to beneficiaries living below the poverty line within the jurisdiction of urban local bodies by utilising their labour for construction of socially and economically useful public assets.

e) Urban Community Development Network (UCDN) aims at promoting community organizations and structures such as Neighbourhood Groups (NHGs), Neighbourhood Committees (NHCs), and Community Development Societies (CDSs) to facilitate sustainable local development.

The following major changes have been included under the revamped scheme:

a) For special category States (8 NER States and 3 other hilly States i.e. Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura, Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand), the funding pattern for the Scheme between Centre and the States, has been revised from 75 :25 to 90:10.

b) For the beneficiary under the Urban Self Employment Programme (USEP) component of the Scheme, the education limit criteria of “not educated beyond 9th standard” has been removed and now no minimum or maximum educational qualification level has been prescribed for the purpose of eligibility of assistance.

c) For the self-employment (individual category), the project cost ceiling has been enhanced to Rs. 2.00 Lakhs from the earlier Rs. 50000/ - and the subsidy has also been enhanced to 25% of the project cost (subject to a maximum of Rs. 50000/-), from the earlier 15% of the project cost (subject to a maximum of Rs. 7500/-).

d) For the group enterprises set up by urban poor women, the subsidy has been made as 35% of the project cost or Rs. 300,000/- or Rs. 60,000/- per member of the Group, whichever is less. The minimum number required to form a women group has been reduced from 10 to 5. The revolving fund entitlement per member has also been enhanced from the existing Rs. 1000/- to Rs. 2000/-.

e) Under the Urban Wage Employment Programme (UWEP) component, which is applicable to the towns having population less than 5 Lakhs as per 1991 census, the 60:40 Material labour ratio for the works under UWEP, flexibility of 10% (either side) is now accorded to the States/UTs.

f) The Skill Training of the Urban poor component has been restructured and quality skill training will be provided to the urban poor linking it with certification, imparted preferably on Public-Private Partnership (PPP) mode, with the involvement of reputed institutions like IITs, NITs, Poly-techniques, ITIs, other reputed agencies etc. The average expenditure ceiling per trainee has been enhanced from the Rs.2600/- to Rs.10000/.

g) 3% of the total Scheme allocation will be retained at the Central level for special / innovative projects to be undertaken to implement a time-bound targeting to bring a specific number of BPL families above the poverty line through self-employment or skill development.

Implementation & Monitoring

• At the National level the Ministry of Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation shall be the nodal Ministry for implementation of SJSRY.

• At the Central level, a Steering Committee headed by Secretary (HUPA) and having members from the States/UTs, Ministry of Finance, RBI, and other stakeholders will monitor the Scheme. This Committee will be meeting at least once in every three months.

• At the State level also, a State Level Monitoring Committee having members from the Banks, Micro Finance Institutions, Civil Society, and other stakeholders will be set up to effectively monitor the Scheme. This Committee will be meeting at least once in every three months.

• At the Urban Local Body level an Urban Poverty Alleviation & Livelihood Development Cell will coordinate and implement the scheme with a suitable monitoring system put in place.