The cohesive strength of Women Self Help Groups (SHGs) was evident in the State during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in facilitating behavioral change and building community resilience. In the backdrop of COVID-19 lockdowns, SHGs have been actively engaged not only in disseminating awareness in the villages, but also in reaching their produce to local markets to meet the demand for essentials food items. Despite the challenges, Nagaland State Rural Livelihood Mission (NSRLM) and its network of 102791 SHGs across 11 Districts and 74 Blocks were able to reach out to 114463 HHs providing critical information on COVID-19, producing 112533 face masks and 944 Liters of Hand Sanitizers, installing 2316 units of bamboo pole hand wash station at every village entry points and places of gathering, facilitating 24207 women members in availing Rs.165 lakhs under Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY), and supplied 64.43 tones of essentials earning amounting to Rs 53.64 Lakhs during the lockdown period.

             The State Mission is in its 9th Year of Implementation and have thus far mobilised 102791 HHs into 11672 SHG, 793 Village Level Organisation (VLO) and 24 Cluster Level Federation (CLF). All 11 Districts, 74 Blocks and 1167 villages have been covered under intensive intervention. The table below presents snapshot of the State Mission's cumulative achievement:

Sl.No.	Key Indicator	TOTAL
1	Districts	11
2	Intensive Blocks	74
3	Intensive Village	1167
4	SECC Total Household	180369
5	HHs mobilized into DAY-NRLM SHGs	102791
6	Self Help Groups (SHGs) promoted	11672
7	Village Level Organizations (VLOs) promoted	793
8	Cluster Level Federation (CLFs) promoted	24
9	Producer Groups (PGs) promoted	18
10	Producer Enterprises (PEs) promoted	1
11	SHG members mobilized into PGs/PEs	1428
12	No Entrepreneurs Promoted (SVEP)	4017
13	No of Youths Placed (DDU-GKY)	681
14	No of Rural Youths Self-Employed (RSETI)	1091

Sustainable Community Institutions:

The State Mission will be registering 3 Model Cluster Level Federations (MCLF) under Cooperative Societies Act by March 2021 and 21 CLFs by FY2021-22. Altogether, Rs. 6579 Lakhs as Community Investment Fund (CIF) has been released to the SHGs for undertaking Income Generating Activities (IGA) and increase household income through women SHG members. Thus far, 24 MCLF has already been formed as Financial Intermediary and additional 58 MCLF will be in placed to cover all 74 Blocks in Nagaland by FY 2021-22. The State Mission has also ensured inclusion of 6790 vulnerable 8 2020-21 households (Elderly and Persons with Disabilities) and mainstreamed them into the fold of SHGs, while 1106 HHs are exclusively mobilized into 143 Special SHGs.

Gender and Livelihoods:

Nagaland is also one of the pilot State for Gender in the country, where gender mainstreaming and integration approach has been consciously promoted across all vertical, with the objective to enhance the status and health of women in Nagaland. The State Mission has promoted 100 Community Managed-Custom Hiring Centre (CM-CHC) with improvised and mechanised farming tools and implements with the objective to reduce drudgery for Mahila Kissans (MKs) engaged in farming. Besides intensifying Agro Ecological Practices (AEP) in 8170 HHs, more than 15000 HHs are covered with Agri-Nutri Kitchen Garden to enhance the nutritional intake of the households, especially women and children. By end of FY2020-21, it is expected that 500 Rooftop Rain Water (RWH) and additional 200 CM-CHCs will be completed. There are 18 Producers Groups (PGs) covering 815 Households and 1 Producer Enterprise (Piggery) covering 613 Households across 2 Blocks, with an annual turnover of Rs. 71.74 Lakhs. Under Aajeevika Gramin Express Yojana (AGEY), 30 Vehicles across 29 Blocks were covered to connect remote villages to markets. The vehicles are procured by SHG Members as interest free loans from the CIF to be repaid within 5 (five) years, while the AGEY Fund will continue to remain as SHG corpus fund to cover more beneficiaries in future. Additional 45 Vehicles is being planned to cover all blocks by FY 2021-22

Financial Inclusion

During the current financial year, 24207 SHG Members have accessed Rs 165 Lakhs through Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY), 291 SHGs have accessed bank credit amounting to Rs 328 Lakhs, 691 Bima Sakhi (Insurance) has been trained and deployed, 87 Bank Sakhi have been trained and positioned in the Bank providing banking services to the SHGs. Under Mission One GP One BC, 15 Banking Correspondence (BC) and 15 DigiPay Sakhi have been deployed. Additional 69 BCs are due for training and Indian Institute of Banking and Finance (IIBF) Certification by March 2021.

Convergence

As an initiative to mitigate challenges during the COVID-19 Lockdown, a proposal “Roadmap for Economic Development of Nagaland post COVID-19 Lockdown” was submitted by the Government of Nagaland (GoN) to the North Eastern Council (NEC-MoDONER). Under this project, Nagaland State Rural Livelihoods Mission (NSRLM) proposal for ''Mushroom Cultivation (Oyster and Shitake) covering 9 Districts as Revolving fund to SHGs'' has also been approved. This Project will cover 500 SHGs across 30 Blocks for Oyster Mushroom, and 500 SHGs in 18 Blocks for Shitake Mushroom. The total approved budget of the project is Rs. 525 Lakhs. In order to cover women SHG members under the 6 Organic Cluster promotion as planned by Department of Horticulture (GoN), NSRLM will be integrating its livelihoods component across the 6 Clusters involving 3000 households covering 3000 Hectares of area (Botsa – Avocado, Changtongya – Banana, Kiphire – Apple, Mon – Ginger, Tuensang – Large Cardamom, Dimapur & Ralan – Dragon Fruit). The State Mission is also actively engaged with the State Nodal Agency (SNA), Department of Industries and Commerce for effective rollout of Pradhan Mantri-Formalisation of Micro Food Processing Enterprises (PM-FME), where 110 SHGs will be covered under Seed Capital component, 7 SHGs and 1 Cooperative under CapitalSubsidy. 2 (Two)District FunctionalSpecialist Livelihoods (Kohima and Peren) of NSRLM have already been trained by SNA as District Level Master Trainer. NSRLM Mission staff from 11 Districts and 41 Blocks have been oriented on PMFME to facilitate more than 1500 SHGswho are undertaking food processing as (IGA).