What this scheme offers
A single rural woman walking into a bank for a loan is, in practical terms, nearly invisible to the credit system — no collateral, no credit history, no leverage. The same woman as part of a Self-Help Group of ten or fifteen others, with a savings track record and peer accountability behind her, looks completely different to a loan officer. DAY-NRLM's actual work is building that structure: organising rural poor women into SHGs, federating those SHGs upward into village and cluster-level organisations, and then opening the door to bank credit at subsidised interest (as low as 7% effective, after interest subvention, for groups that repay on time), alongside skill training and market linkages for whatever the group decides to produce or sell. It's become India's largest platform of its kind by a wide margin — over 9 crore women organised into roughly 90 lakh SHGs — precisely because the credit access follows from the organising, not the other way around.
Who is eligible
- Rural woman from a poor or vulnerable household, willing to join or form a Self-Help Group (SHG).
- No fixed income ceiling nationally; states/districts typically target households identified as poor through local participatory surveys.
- Existing SHG members seeking bank linkage, skill training, or enterprise support.
Documents required
- Aadhaar card
- Bank account details (individual and/or SHG group account)
- Residential proof (rural domicile)
How to apply
- Contact your village's NRLM community resource person, Gram Panchayat, or Block Mission Management Unit to join or form a Self-Help Group — most villages already have active SHGs you can join directly.
- Participate in regular SHG savings for a few months to build the track record most banks expect before extending credit.
- Once your SHG is functioning well, it can apply for bank linkage through NRLM's facilitated process, accessing loans at subsidised interest.
- Take advantage of linked skill-training and livelihood programmes (tailoring, food processing, livestock, and more) offered through your Block Mission Management Unit.
- For market linkage support once you're producing goods, ask your SHG federation about NRLM's marketing initiatives, including participation in state and national-level exhibitions.