In 2015, Aijaz Ahmad Shah was working as a private school teacher with a meagre salary, today he is an owner of a private school where he provides jobs to 12 people and earns a handsome profit.
Through his friend, Shah, a resident of Dooru Anantnag came to know about the Jammu and Kashmir National Rural Livelihood Mission which became a founding stone of his entrepreneurial journey and route to his financial independence.
“I met the representatives of JKNRLM who informed me about the financial assistance they are providing to people for setting up their business, as I was in the education field, I decided to invest in this sector and formed a Self Helf Group in which my wife along with our two daughters are members, we got financial assistance and rest is history.”
Shah’s school SS Mission has over 250 students enrolled and 12 employees are working there. His story is one of the examples of JKRLM hand holding youth towards self-employment. The entrepreneur is repaying loans from Banks facilitated by NRLM.
In the same district of Anantnag, another successful story funded by JKRLM is Mehak Bashir. She has set up a dairy farm that has helped her alone and her entire family.
“I came to know about JKRLM where I was trained and then helped financially to set up my dairy farm. I got a loan of over Rs 2.4 lakh for purchasing cattle. Our average daily milk production is 100 litres which we sell and some portion of it is used in making cheese and curd. I have also got financial assistance for the purchase of a vehicle which is operated by my father,” Mehak said adding that she is also pursuing her studies but after completion of studies unlike others, she doesn’t have to run after jobs.
The State Rural Livelihood Mission aims“to reduce poverty in the state by building strong grassroots institutions of the poor, engage them into gainful livelihoods interventions and ensure appreciable improvement in their income on a sustainable basis.
That, every poor household comes out of poverty with immense confidence and belief in themselves. A poor start to think positively about himself and his family.
And where in the lifetime of the poor he has accessed all possibilities of change and harnessed his entire talent and worth. Every poor reaps all the benefits of government schemes as his entitlement which ultimately helps him to live a life full of contentment, happiness, and dignity.”
National Rural Livelihoods Mission is being run in J&K as Jammu and Kashmir State Rural Livelihoods Mission (Umeed). The UMEED is turning the wheel of transformation for J&K women to become progressive and self-employed entrepreneurs.
The Rural Livelihood Mission aims to reduce poverty by building strong grassroots institutions for the poor, engaging them in gainful livelihood interventions and ensuring appreciable improvement in their income on a sustainable basis.
JKRLM has now emerged as a movement with one lakh rural women brought under the ambit of this ambitious Mission in the current financial year making it a network of 5 lakh women treading the path towards economic development.
UMEED has the potential to give wings to the aspirations of rural women who dream of becoming economically independent.