National Urban Livelihoods Mission (NULM) was launched by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation (MHUPA), Government of India in 23rd September, 2013 by replacing the existing Swarna Jayanti Shahari Rozgar Yojana (SJSRY).

The NULM will focus on organizing urban poor in their strong grassroots level institutions, creating opportunities for skill development leading to market-based employment and helping them to set up self-employment venture by ensuring easy access to credit.

The Mission is aimed at providing shelter equipped with essential services to the urban homeless in a phased manner. In addition, the Mission would also address livelihood concerns of the urban street vendors. 

The Employment through Skill Training & Placement (EST&P) Component under NULM is designed to provide skills to the unskilled urban poor as well as to upgrade their existing skills.

The programme will provide for skill training of the urban poor to enable them setting up self-employment ventures and for salaried jobs in the private sector. The EST&P Programme Intends to fill the gap between the demand and availability of local skills by providing skill    training programmes as required by the market.

The most important idea behind this is that the people in rural areas should have access to resources and the proper kind of guidance that would enable them to get employment and earn more than the amount that a daily wage worker earns, as that income is unstable. This earning capability empowers and motivates them, so that one day they may even go ahead and start their own business. What must be taken into account is that the people in rural areas are highly driven individuals who lack basic resources and support. 

7 crore rural households in 600 districts, 6000 blocks, 2.5 lakh Gram Panchayats and 6 lakh villages are covered under the scheme, all over the country. This is done with the help of self-help groups that are managed by the rural people to support the rural people to get access to better livelihood opportunities. Additionally, the scheme is supposed to help the rural poor get better access to their rights, entitlements and public services. The NULM scheme believes in harnessing the pre-existing skills of the rural poor by training them further and providing them with assistance so that they can use these skills to gain employment. 

Some guiding principles of the NULM scheme are as follows

• The rural poor people have a strong desire to get themselves out of poverty, and they also have skills to do so. What they lack are tools and resources. The scheme also aims to preserve the skills that already exist within the rural communities. 
• Social mobilization can help build strong institutions for the rural poor. These help in unleashing the true potential of poor people. 
• There is a strong focus on skill-building, access to marketing and credit, along with access to other resources. 

Some key features of the scheme:

• Social Mobilization: For this, one woman is selected from each rural household and brought into the self-help network. More emphasis is placed on groups that are particularly vulnerable like victims of human trafficking or scavenging groups. NULM has special strategies in place for these groups. 
• Participatory Identification of the Poor (PIP): The target group is included in the scheme by determining every factor to ensure that the process is transparent.
• Financial Inclusion: The scheme works to promote financial literacy amongst the rural poor by providing capital to the self-help groups. The scheme also coordinates with the financial sector by facilitating the use of information technology.
• Target Group: The target group of this scheme includes street vendors, members of the urban poor families, homeless people and other poverty-stricken groups who wish to be a part of the entrepreneurship revolution in India. 

The broader objective of the Employment through Skills Training & Placement (EST&P) Programme is –

1. To provide an asset to the urban poor in the form of skills for sustainable livelihood.
2. To increase the income of urban poor through structured, market-oriented certified courses that can provide salaried employment and / or self-employment opportunities which will eventually lead to better living standards and alleviation of urban poverty on a sustainable basis
3. Ensure inclusive growth with increased contribution of skilled urban poor to the

National Economy.

The dimensions of urban poverty can be broadly divided into three categories: (i) residential vulnerability (access to land, shelter, basic services, etc.); (ii) social vulnerability (deprivations related to factors like gender, age and social stratification, lack of social protection, inadequate voice and participation in governance structures, etc.) and (iii) occupational vulnerability (precarious livelihoods, dependence on informal sector for employment and earnings, lack of job security, poor working conditions, etc.). These vulnerabilities are inter-related. Amongst the urban poor, there are sections subject to greater vulnerability in terms of the above classification; these include women, children, and the aged, SCs, STs, minorities and differently-abled persons who deserve attention on a priority basis.

AISECT has been a driving force for this mission since the year 2014, in major states, namely Punjab, Haryana, Gujarat, UP, Himachal, Jharkhand, Arunachala Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh. 

AISECT also contributed and trained 10,000+ urban youths and provide them employment opportunities.

Further details available at http://mohua.gov.in/ & https://nulm.gov.in/