The North East Rural Livelihood Project at a glance

Dimapur, Nov. 16 (EMN): The objective of the North East Rural Livelihood Project (NERLP) of the Development of North Eastern Region (Doner) funded by the World Bank, is to improve livelihood especially that of rural women, unemployed youths and the most disadvantaged sections of the four North-eastern states of Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura. This was stated in a press release on Saturday from M Ringsanbo Zeliang, state project coordinator of the NERLP in Nagaland. The NERLP issued to the media on November 16 a press release informing about the work, activities and progress of the development agency in regard to the project. The project has a three approach to strengthening for achieving sustainable development. They are social empowerment, economic empowerment, and partnership and linkages. The project covers two districts each of Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and five districts of Tripura. The eleven districts cover as many as 62 blocks and 1,645 villages. In Nagaland, chief minister of the state Neiphiu Rio inaugurated the project on December 2 2013. In Nagaland, the NERLP is implemented in Tuensang covering eight blocks and in Peren covering three blocks.   The project focuses on economic uplift through micro-financing, and banking services provided to the unemployed or low-income individuals to access financial services which ultimately give people in need an opportunity to become  self-sufficient. Another goal is sustainable livelihood, through self-help groups. A self-help group is a small economically homogeneous affinity group of the rural poor, voluntarily coming together to save small amounts of funds regularly. The success stories are changing lives and transforming communities, the press release stated. ‘The youths are the backbone of the society, particularly in the villages, but the unemployed and school drop-outs has high rate. As such the need of employment has been observed. The project has identified agencies who impart training and has trained about 993 both in Tuensang and Peren in various sectors such as aviation, hospitality, health services, electrical etc and sent them for placement.’ Further, the project has another objective. It works toward improving rural livelihood, especially that of women and the unemployed. The desired outcome of the project to be achieved has been set in terms of increase in income and institutional sustainability, the NERLP stated.