Focus on SJSRY scheme implementation

BANGALORE:  CIVIC Bangalore and city-level Federation of Community Development Societies (CDS), jointly organised a public consultation on Suvarna Jayanthi Shahari Rozgar Yojana(SJSRY) on how it is being implemented in BBMP on Saturday.    Venkatachalapathi, Deputy Commissioner (Welfare), BBMP,  Janardhan, Community Organiser, Directorate of Municipal Administration (DMA),   Jagadish Murthy, Chief Manager, State-level Bankers  Committee, Lakshapathy, Director, APSA,  Venkatesh, Dalit Bahujan Chaluvali, Sushilamma, President of CDS Federation, Kathyayini Chamaraj, Executive trustee, CIVIC Bangalore, representatives of NGOs/CBOs and CDS members participated in the programme.Project Coordinator of CIVIC Bangalore Lakshmikantha  presented the findings of a survey of CDS members conducted in five BBMP zones.  Under this scheme, individuals of BPL families and groups of women can apply for loans and subsidies. About 57 per cent of the applications  are being rejected by banks. The  reasons given for rejection of applications are: inappropriate project proposal, banks not asking the documents at one time, demands for submitting surety, burden on SJSRY employees as they handle BBMP welfare works also, etc.  Even if the application is approved, the time taken to release loan and subsidy varies from one to two years. More than 64 per cent beneficiaries have received funds more than a year later after approval, he explained.“CDS members complained that the interaction of BBMP and bank officials with the applicants is very poor. Eighty per cent of the applicants have said that they did not receive any information regarding the status of their application from the bank and 50 per cent of them have said banks asked for surety,” stressed Lakshmikantha.Venkatachalapathi, DC (Welfare) of BBMP, stated, “The poor implementation of SJSRY was due to the lack of sufficient manpower in BBMP for its implementation.  I promise  to call a meeting of all stakeholders within one month to chalk out an action plan to improve the implementation of the scheme. We have many programmes for the urban poor.”   Kathyayini Chamaraj made a presentation on the upcoming National Urban Livelihood Mission (NULM), which will replace SJSRY during the 12th Five-Year Plan. She opined, “NULM was ‘old wine in a new bottle’ which had merely  changed the names and acronyms of the SJSRY schemes and given them new names and acronyms. Under NULM, the government is thinking of outsourcing most tasks to NGOs and focusing more on public-private partnerships and trying to wash its hands of its responsibility for urban poverty alleviation.”