Ministry of Rural Development signs MoU with Veddis Foundation for National Rural Livelihood Mission

Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) has signed an MoU with Gurugram-based Veddis Foundation to enable effective governance of Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana – National Rural Livelihood Mission (DAY-NRLM), strengthen state capacities, establish innovative models and implement the national strategy for Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRI) and SHG convergence.

The DAY-NRLM is the flagship program of Government of India towards creating institutional platforms for the rural poor, mainly women, enabling them to increase household income through sustainable livelihood enhancements and improved access to financial services in addition to increased access to rights, entitlements, and public services. With an annual budget outlay of over Rs. 13,000 crores, the program is spread across 7.15 lakh villages in 723 districts of 34 states and union territories, and has brought more than 8.6 crore rural households under its fold.

As per the MoU, Veddis Foundation will establish a governance PMU in the Rural Livelihood (RL) Division of MoRD for the next five years. Taking a paradigm shift from universal access to quality of access, the partnership will hinge on data driven governance as a lever for effective and efficient utilization of public funds.

Veddis Foundation which currently runs the State Rural Livelihoods Mission (SRLM) PMUs in Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Manipur, and in the past in Rajasthan, will be working on a 360 degree approach – building field insights into policy action as well as effective implementation of government’s top level priorities. It will be a strategic technical partner for extending policy support, embedding improved processes and enabling systems strengthening for effective implementation of DAY-NRLM along with training and capacity building support for state partners.

One of the initial focuses as part of the MoU is an annual report on the State of SRLMs in which various SRLMs are expected to be evaluated on the basis of a ‘Governance index’.
The partnership with MoRD is part of Veddis Foundation’s 3 yr, INR 100 crore commitment to social development that was made in October 2021. Earlier this year, Veddis Foundation had announced the multi-year partnership with J-PAL to accelerate evidence-based policymaking in states.

Speaking on the occasion, Joint Secretary, Rural Livelihoods, Nita Kejrewal said “Keeping in view the scale of works under DAY-NRLM, particularly in the areas of strengthening federations, specifically the cluster level Federations, it is important to have partnerships with various stakeholders with aligned vision. We are confident that this partnership with the Veddis Foundation, which has a very good experience in such areas of work, will help MoRD in furthering its agenda in a more effective manner and also ensure much needed technical assistance to SRLMs, including improvement in the governance systems of the states”.

“Our work with states on the rural livelihoods mission over the last five years has shown that building state capacity is the most important factor in enabling sustainable and effective governance of large multi-stakeholder programs like the NRLM. We look forward to our partnership with MoRD to establish a replicable governance model at scale for such programs”, said Murugan Vasudevan, CEO of Veddis Foundation.

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