'Govt trying to fight poverty by enabling employment for poor'

The government is working to engage the poorest in various diverse employment opportunities besides agriculture under the NRLM scheme to eradicate poverty, a top official today said.
"Under this National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM), we are working on reducing the poverty by enabling poor households to access gainful self-employment opportunities, Rural Development Secretary Amarjeet Sinha said here.
He was speaking at a workshop on NRLM.
"Besides agriculture, we are looking to involve poor people under other diverse employment programmes. And for this they are being trained also," he said.
The special focus is also being given to enable the poor households to access gainful self-employment opportunities, he added.

Sinha also informed that so far 8 crore women have been engaged in various self help groups under this mission.

Under NRLM, at least one woman member from each identified rural poor household is to be brought under the self help group network in a time-bound manner.
The special emphasis is particularly on vulnerable communities such as manual scavengers, victims of human trafficking, vulnerable tribal groups among others.
NRLM follows a demand driven strategy, the states have the flexibility to develop their livelihoods-based perspective plans and annual action plans for poverty reduction.