The Kudumbashree Story

Women Empowerment

Kudumbashree as SRLM

Even though Kudumbashree was visualised as the single agency for poverty eradication covering rural and urban areas, the State government had been able to designate it as nodal agency for urban centrally sponsored schemes only. The State’s Department of Rural Development resisted any move to take over the rural poverty alleviation schemes for which the department had been the implementing agency.

A change in this was brought out by the re-launching of SGSY as National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM). The State government recommended Kudumbashree as the State Rural Livelihoods Mission (SRLM) as per the requirement of NRLM. The State Rural Development Department resisted this move on the basis that NRLM was only a reincarnation of SGSY for which the department had been the implementing agency.

There were civil society claimants too for taking up the role of SRLM. As has been the practice in other states where a state level agency did not exist before, certain civil society agencies had demanded that they too share the role of SRLM. However, the State government and the central government stood firm on their decision and Kudumbashree was designated SRLM for Kerala. This led to further strengthening of institutionalisation of PRI-community organisation convergence.