Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana – NRLM: Objectives, Eligibility, Benefits & Key Facts

Introduction

India’s largest poverty alleviation programme is not a welfare handout—it is a women-led credit movement. Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana – National Rural Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NRLM) has organised over 10 crore rural women into more than 92 lakh Self-Help Groups (SHGs) across the country, channelling ₹13.67 lakh crore in bank credit to households that the formal banking system once considered unbankable . With a repayment rate exceeding 98% and 3.46 crore women now recognised as Lakhpati Didis, the mission has fundamentally rewritten the rules of rural finance . This guide explains what DAY-NRLM is, who it serves, how it works on the ground, and what the latest 2026 figures mean for aspirants, beneficiaries, and exam candidates alike.  

What is DAY-NRLM? 

It’s a central government scheme that brings together rural poor women in Self-Help Groups (SHGs) to tackle poverty head-on by making it easier for them to get access to cash and build long-term careers that pay the bills.

When did it kick off?

 2010, initially, as NRLM; by 2016 it had been rebranded as DAY-NRLM.

Which department is in charge of it? 

That would be the Ministry of Rural Development.

Who does it help? 

Primarily rural households who are struggling to get by, but priority is given to women, people from scheduled castes and tribes, tribal groups in special need, and families who don’t own any land.

What’s Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana – NRLM All About?

DAY-NRLM is the Indian government’s flagship poverty-reduction plan. It aims to get poor women in rural areas together in Self-Help Groups and connect them up to banks, job opportunities, and markets. Its set up and run by the Ministry of Rural Development in partnership with states and territories (bar Chandigarh and Delhi).

From NRLM (2011) to DAY-NRLM: a bit of history

The scheme came out in 2010 as the National Rural Livelihood Mission, effectively replacing the old Swarnajayanti Grameen Swarojgar Yojana (SGSY). In 2016 the name got changed to Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana – NRLM, and got brought under the Aajeevika umbrella. This change happened back in June 2011.

DAY-NRLM, the Ministry of Rural Development & the World Bank

DAY-NRLM is run by the Ministry of Rural Development in partnership with the World Bank. The World Bank even provided some design & initial scaling support. This scheme runs through State Rural Livelihood Missions in each state and is partly funded by the Centre and states.

What DAY-NRLM Sets Out To Do

• Get rural poverty down by giving poor households, especially women, access to money and new skills\
• Get more poor women into SHGs and build strong community groups
• Get bank accounts and manage cash flow for everyone
• Get people working in the villages making a proper living – in farming or other jobs
• Get products made by SHGs to market, be it a marketplace, online, or some other way

DAY-NRLM Eligibility: Who Can Join The Ranks?

Any rural poor household and one woman per household

• The poor households are identified by a process that gets everyone in the community involved, and some data from the SECC
• One woman per household is usually the SHG member – it helps spread the benefits and cuts down on duplicate enrollments
• Women are the focus here – under DAY-NRLM, men can’t join SHGs

Priority groups

• Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes
• People with Disabilities
• Households without any land or with very little land
• Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups – those in need of extra support
• All households identified by SECC as being poor or needing help

The structure of DAY-NRLM: the SHG, VO & CLF

1. Self-Help Group (SHG): a dozen or so rural women who save money together and get access to a credit line\
2. Village Organisation (VO): a federation of 8-15 SHGs in the same village\
3. Cluster Federation (CLF): a federation of VOs in the same area, getting bigger loans & planning bigger livelihoods

Community Resource Persons and State Rural Livelihood Missions

Community Resource Persons (CRPs) are trained SHG women who serve as Krishi Sakhis (agriculture), Pashu Sakhis (livestock), and Bank Sakhis (financial services), providing last-mile support. State Rural Livelihood Missions (SRLMs) are the state-level agencies that implement DAY-NRLM on the ground.

Key Benefits and Financial Support Under DAY-NRLM

Revolving Fund and Community Investment Fund

Bank linkage and interest subvention

• SHGs access collateral-free bank loans with interest subvention
• Over ₹11 lakh crore disbursed to women SHGs cumulatively, with repayment rate above 98%
• Bank Sakhis (trained SHG members) facilitate credit linkage at bank branches

Livelihood sub-schemes (SVEP, MKSP, AGEY)

Getting Trained and Placed (DDU-GKY, RSETIs)

• DDU-GKY (Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana): The idea here is to train rural youth and then get them placed in jobs – so far, 17.5 lakh people have gone through training and 11.48 lakh of them are now working
• RSETIs (Rural Self Employment Training Institutes): These are short courses that help people set up their own businesses, and they’ve also arranged bank credit to help these new entrepreneurs get going

Showing Off What We Do (SARAS Melas, SHE-MARTs)

• Saras Melas: These are big exhibitions that take place all over India, whether at a national, regional or state level – we’re talking 2 national ones and over 50 state ones every year
• eSaras: That’s our online version, where we sell stuff on platforms like GeM, ONDC, Amazon, Flipkart, Meesho and JioMart
• State-branded products: We’ve got various state brands, like Kudumbashree from Kerala, UMED from Maharashtra, and Himira from Himachal Pradesh

What is the Lakhpati Didi Initiative Under DAY-NRLM?

In simple terms, it’s about women from Self-Help Groups who’ve managed to earn a household income of at least ₹1 lakh per year – and that’s not a one-off. They’re making it on a consistent basis, across at least 4 seasons or business cycles .

What we’re aiming for: Get 6 crore women to become Lakhpati Didis. By 2026, we’ve already made it happen for over 3.46 crore SHG members

Namo Drone Didi: A central scheme that gives 15,000 women SHGs access to drones for renting out for agricultural spraying services. We’ll give you an 80% subsidy of up to ₹8 lakh per drone, so you can earn an extra ₹1 lakh per year from this .

Joining a Self-Help Group Under DAY-NRLM – Here’s How You Do It

1. First step: get in touch with your local Gram Panchayat or Block Mission Management Unit (BMMU) and tell them you’re interested
2. If there’s a participatory identification of the poor exercise going on in your area, take part
3. Get a group of 10-20 women together who are all from similar backgrounds and form an SHG
4. Start putting some money aside – this is usually a regular thing, about ₹50-200 per person per month
5. Get through 6 months of saving and bookkeeping, and you’ll be eligible for a revolving fund
6. You’ll need to go through some training on money management and running an SHG – this will be arranged by the people who help run these groups
7. And once you’ve shown that you can handle your finances properly, you can start accessing bigger loans from the bank

DAY-NRLM Key Facts and Latest Figures (2026)

Challenges in DAY-NRLM

• State performance has various issues – some SRLMs are struggling with SHG formation & credit linkage
• Even with a 98% repayment rate, SHG loan defaults remain a problem in certain areas
• Lots of SHGs struggle to get their products into the market beyond subsidised melas
• The Lakhpati verification process is a challenge due to people self-declaring income – the LokOS system needs to be used for robust block-level validation
• Due to bank branch constraints, getting credit approved & small loan limits are still holding back progress on the ground

DAY-NRLM for Competitive Exams: Quick Revision Points

• DAY-NRLM started in 2010 as NRLM; it got a name change to DAY-NRLM in 2016
• Its parent Ministry is Rural Development
• The main agency putting it into action is State Rural Livelihood Missions (SRLMs)
• At its core is the SHG (a group of 10–20 women) → Voice of the Poor (VO) → Cluster Livelihood Federation (CLF) structure
• There are two key funds: the Revolving Fund (RF) & the Community Investment Fund (CIF)
• To be classified as a Lakhpati Didi, a household needs to earn over 1 lakh annually
• Kerala is a great example of how the SRLM system works in practice – their Kudumbashree model is a globally recognised success story of women coming together to drive change.

Conclusion

DAY-NRLM has managed to bring more than 10 crores of rural women into nearly 92 lakh SHGs, handed out more than 13 lakh crores of bank credit & enabled 346,000 Lakhpati Didis. For readers from Kerala, Kudumbashree remains the state’s pioneering SRLM model – to get involved, just reach out to your local Block Mission Management Unit or Gram Panchayat and ask them about starting your own SHG.