The Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana-National Urban Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NULM), a flagship mission under the housing and urban affairs ministry, has been conferred the prestigious SKOCH Governance Gold Award for its Portal for Affordable Credit and Interest Subvention Access (PAiSA).

What is the PaiSA portal?

Launched in November 2018, PAiSA is a centralised IT platform that simplifies and streamlines the release of interest subvention under the mission.

It offers an end-to-end online solution for processing, payment, monitoring and tracking of interest subvention claims from banks on a monthly basis. Claims for subvention are uploaded by banks through their core banking solution in respect of the beneficiaries of the self-employment programme, which are verified and approved by the state concerned.

The approved claim amount gets credited directly to the beneficiary’s loan account. An SMS is sent to the beneficiary’s mobile number intimating the credit of subvention amount. The portal has been designed and developed by Allahabad Bank.

As of now, 28 states and Union Territories and 74 banks, including 21 public sector, 18 private and 35 regional rural banks, are part of the portal. Till now, 1.5 lakh beneficiaries have been paid Rs 27 crore as interest subvention through the PAiSA portal.

Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana

The Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana was launched in a bid to uplift the urban poor by enhancing sustainable livelihood opportunities through skill development. Keeping in view the objective of Make in India, skill development is essential for socio-economic betterment. The scheme was launched under the housing and urban poverty alleviation ministry with a budget of Rs 500 crore.

The scheme is an integration of the National Urban Livelihoods Mission (NULM) and National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM).

The scheme covers all 4,041 cities and towns, thereby covering almost the entire urban population.

Components of DAY-NULM

The scheme has two components. 1. The urban component (Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana) will be implemented by the housing and urban poverty alleviation ministry. 2. The rural component (Deendayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana) will be implemented by the rural development ministry.

Highlights of the scheme

Employment through skill training and placement: An amount of Rs 15,000 per person is earmarked for training an urban poor individual (Rs 18,000 in the Northeast and Jammu & Kashmir). Market-oriented skills are provided through City Livelihood Centres.

Social mobilisation and institution development: It will be done through the formation of self-help groups for training members and hand-holding, an initial support of Rs 10,000 is given for each group. Assistance of Rs 50,000 is provided to registered area-level federations.

Subsidy for urban poor: An interest subsidy of 5-7 per cent for setting up individual micro-enterprises with a loan of up to Rs 2 lakh and for group enterprises with a loan limit of up to Rs 10 lakh.

Shelters for urban homeless: Cost of construction of shelters for urban homeless is fully funded under the scheme.

Other means: Development of vendor markets and also the promotion of skills for vendors through setting up infrastructure and special projects for ragpickers, differently abled, etc.