Government develops strategy to create social capital

• The government has developed an intensive strategy to ensure social inclusion through participatory identification of the poor and universal social mobilisation. The National Rural Livelihoods Project (NRLP) is to support implementation of the National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM) in 12 high poverty States that account for 85% of the rural poor in the country.
• The aim is to create best practice sites and to develop them as local immersion locations that generate a pool of social capital for catalysing social mobilisation of the poor and building quality institutions.
• The Rural Development Ministry has been facilitating 400 intensive blocks across the country under the NRLM Framework, out of which 100 blocks would be developed as resource blocks. The blocks that are taken up for implementation of the NRLM will be called ‘intensive blocks.’ In all 73 resource blocks are proposed to be implemented in the NRLP States for five years.
• According to official data, there are already a total of 47 resource blocks cutting across States including Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jammu and Kashmir and Haryana, covering nearly 2,000 villages. In these States nearly 13,000 Self-Help Groups have been supported. The strategy aims to cover a significant 5 lakhs BPL households.

  Significance of Resource Blocks:

• The resource block strategy will cover a whole range of activities, including a trained professional staff at district, block and sub-block levels. The strategy also entails promotion of institutions of the poor SHGs and their primary federations which ultimately will create and strengthen a large base of social capital or community professionals.
• Also, resource blocks ensure proof of concept and home-grown models in social mobilisation and institutional building, financial inclusion, bookkeeping and livelihoods. These resource pockets would create efficient and effective institutional platforms of the rural poor enabling them to increase household incomes through sustainable livelihood enhancements and improved access to financial and selected public services.
• The poor would be facilitated to achieve increased access to their rights, entitlements and public services, diversified risk and better social indicators of empowerment.