A Dozen Years of SGSY - An Assortment of Fieldwork- Based Studies

The Swarna Jayanti Gram Sworozgar Yojana (SGSY), the flagship poverty alleviation programme, has been a holistic Scheme with uniquely perfect and detailed Guidelines covering all aspects of self-employment, operative from 1 April 1999 in rural areas of the country. After a decade of relatively successful performance, the SGSY is being restructured into National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) for its effective implementation in a mission mode. An analysis of various studies on SGSY, mostly from direct experiences at different corners of India, is covered in this paper. It is an assortment of field work reports which throw light to the setbacks in the implementation of SGSY, as observed from the wide range of study areas located in different States.