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The Ministry of Rural Development launched the 'National Campaign on Entrepreneurship-II' under DAY-NRLM for three months, from 21 August to 21 November 2026, widening the first phase to cover farm enterprises, non-farm enterprises and the marketing of SHG products.
Secretary, Department of Rural Development, Sh. Rohit Kansal, also released the first edition of 'Sankalp Shakti', the Rural Enterprise Technical Bulletin of DAY-NRLM, which will now be a monthly publication.
The campaign is pitched at the vision of 6 crore Lakhpati Didis, and shifts emphasis to intensive enterprise handholding, formalisation, producer institutions and simpler implementation processes.
Community cadres CRP-EPs and Business Development Service Providers will be recognised as 'Udyam Sakhis'; e-commerce onboarding will run through ONDC, GeM and other digital platforms.
Launched on 21 August, observed globally as World Entrepreneurs Day; attended in person by Rural Development Secretaries of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, West Bengal and Goa, and virtually by Mission Directors of 34 State Rural Livelihoods Missions.
Reduce rural poverty by mobilising poor rural women into self-managed, financially sustainable Self Help Groups and their federations, and linking them to finance, livelihoods and entitlements.
Key: Launched in June 2011 as the National Rural Livelihoods Mission (also called 'Aajeevika'), restructuring the Swarnajayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY); renamed DAY-NRLM with effect from 29 March 2016. Its four core components are social mobilisation and institution building, financial inclusion, sustainable livelihoods, and social inclusion and access to entitlements.
Help SHG members and their families set up small non-farm enterprises in rural blocks.
Key: Sub-scheme of DAY-NRLM approved on 6 May 2015, with the block as the operational unit and a four-year project cycle. It creates the Community Resource Person-Enterprise Promotion (CRP-EP) cadre and Block Resource Centres that handle training, credit facilitation and business-plan validation. Long-term vision: support 1 crore village enterprises and generate direct employment for 2 crore people.
Raise SHG households to an annual income of at least Rs 1 lakh on a sustainable basis.
Key: Launched in 2023 with a 2 crore target, raised to 3 crore in the Interim Budget 2024-25. In the Independence Day address of 15 August 2026 the Prime Minister said the 3 crore target had been surpassed and set a new target of 6 crore Lakhpati Didis - the target this campaign is built around.
Equip women's SHGs with drones so they can earn rental income by spraying liquid fertilisers and pesticides for farmers.
Key: Central Sector Scheme with an outlay of Rs 1,261 crore, targeting 15,000 women SHGs. Central financial assistance covers 80% of the cost of the drone and accessories subject to a ceiling of Rs 8 lakh, with the balance available as a loan under the National Agriculture Infra Financing Facility carrying 3% annual interest subvention. Launched by the Prime Minister on 30 November 2023.
DAY-NRLM does not deal with individual poor women one at a time. It builds a three-tier federated structure: 10-20 women form a Self Help Group (SHG) that saves and lends internally; SHGs in a village federate into a Village Organisation (VO); and VOs federate into a Cluster Level Federation (CLF) at panchayat or block level. Each higher tier can negotiate with banks, aggregate produce, run community funds and take on programme delivery that a single SHG is too small to handle. It is this ladder that lets a campaign like this one reach lakhs of women through a modest cadre of trained community resource persons. As of 2026, the Ministry of Rural Development reported that over 10 crore rural women were part of the SHG network under DAY-NRLM.
Simple Analogy: Think of it as a cooperative pyramid: the SHG is the neighbourhood savings circle, the Village Organisation is the village-level chapter, and the Cluster Level Federation is the block-level union that can actually sit across the table from a bank or a bulk buyer.
Nodal ministry for DAY-NRLM, SVEP, Lakhpati Didi and the rural SHG ecosystem; the Department of Rural Development implements DAY-NRLM through State Rural Livelihoods Missions (SRLMs).
Open protocol network that lets buyers and sellers on different apps transact with each other, used here to take SHG products to national e-commerce demand; it is a set of specifications, not a marketplace app.
Public procurement portal through which central and state government buyers purchase goods and services - the route by which SHG enterprises can reach institutional government demand.
The campaign is explicitly framed as feeding the 6 crore Lakhpati Didi vision announced in the Independence Day address of 15 August 2026, after the earlier 3 crore target was surpassed.
The 21 August launch date was chosen because the day is observed globally as World Entrepreneurs Day, and the campaign runs exactly three months from it.
Routing SHG products through ONDC and GeM links a rural livelihoods scheme to India's digital commerce and public procurement stack - an ecosystem question examiners like, since ONDC sits under DPIIT and GeM under the Department of Commerce, both in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
The 2 lakh additional members in Producer Groups and Producer Enterprises connects DAY-NRLM to the wider Farmer Producer Organisation push in Indian agriculture, where collectivisation is the standard answer to small holding size and weak bargaining power.
A parallel effort to move SHG women from wage work to service enterprise, using the same SHG delivery channel that this campaign relies on.
GS Paper 2 > Governance > Welfare Schemes for Vulnerable Sections and their Performance
General Awareness > Government Schemes
General Awareness > Priority Sector, SHG-Bank Linkage and Financial Inclusion
General Awareness > Current Affairs and Schemes
In the context of polity, which one of the following would you accept as the most appropriate definition of liberty?
Answer: Opportunity to develop oneself fully
DAY-NRLM, SHGs and Lakhpati Didi appear almost every year across UPSC Prelims, SSC and banking general awareness.
An SHG woman whose household earns at least Rs 1 lakh a year on a sustainable basis.
Community Resource Person-Enterprise Promotion - trained local youth under SVEP who guide rural entrepreneurs from business idea to operations, compliance and market linkage.
Business Development Service Provider - a community cadre supporting enterprise promotion; to be recognised, along with CRP-EPs, as 'Udyam Sakhis'.
The new umbrella recognition announced for CRP-EPs and BDSPs to give visibility to the community enterprise promotion cadre.
State Rural Livelihoods Mission - the state-level agency that implements DAY-NRLM; 34 of them joined the launch virtually.
The Rural Enterprise Technical Bulletin of DAY-NRLM, first edition released on 21 August 2026, to be published monthly.