Women Empowerment Impact through Nagaland State Rural Livelihood Mission Scheme in Dimapur District of Nagaland

Nagaland is the 16th State of India having 12 districts consisting of 74 blocks, 114 sub-districts, 19 statutory towns, 7 census towns and 1,428 villages (Anonymous, 2020a). While there is no common identified yardstick to define poverty in Nagaland, it is well known that majority of the rural population still struggle to make end needs. The state has poor connectivity and to an extreme in the remote corners, limited financial institutions and poor presence of Government and Non-government organization working for the livelihood of the rural population. Therefore the rural people that form the major percentage of the state population still struggle to find means of livelihood. Emerged as a blessing NRLM also known by the name Nagaland State Rural Livelihood Mission (NSRLM) was established on the 13^th September 2012 registered under societies Act 1860 and Nagaland Societies Registration Amendment Act 1969. In Nagaland out of 12 districts, 11 districts such as Dimapur, Kiphire, Kohima, Longleng, Mokokchung, Mon, Phek, Wokha, Zunheboto, Tuensang and Peren have been covered by NSRLM. The State mission is expected to enter and saturate the last Blocks and the household by 2020 with handholding support period till all the blocks in the State are covered under the program. As of today, total of 9,175 self-help groups (SHGs) have been registered in eleven districts of Nagaland and a total of 5,787 SHGs have received revolving funds (RF) as of January 28, 2020 (Anonymous, 2020b).
       
Initially the program was launched in 12 states of the country that accounts for 85.00 per cent of rural poor in India. Currently it is covering all the states and Union territories of India except Delhi and Chandigarh targeting 70 million BPL households within the end of 12th five years plan. Today nationwide the programme has mobilized ₹ 705.50 lakh households into SHGs, creating ₹ 64.50 lakh SHGs and ₹  2.50 lakh VLO sat a cost of disbursing revolving fund amounting to ₹ 221203.50 lakh to SHGs and community investment fund of ₹ 6, 00, 785.50 lakh to the VLOs. National Rural Livelihood Mission is a central scheme with cost sharing basis of 90: 10 by the Central and State Governments in the Northeastern and hill states of India (Anonymous, 2016).
       
Therefore the present paper has been an attempt to assess the rural beneficiaries’ women impact under National State Rural Livelihood Mission (NSRLM) in their life, with the specific objectives: i). to access the degree of women empowerment under NSRLM and ii). to study the constraints faced by the beneficiaries under NSRLM.

For the present study Chumukidema RD block has been selected purposively due to has been more successfully implemented, Chumukedima block under Dimapur district comprises of 51 villages, 22 Village Level Organization and 445 Self Help Groups (SHGs) which are under the guidance of NSRLM program, out of which 3857 household have mobilized into SHGs, 195 number of beneficiaries has opened personal bank accounts, 223 members are of A-Grade SHGs, 8 SHGs have accessed to credit linkages/ accessed (Anonymous, 2016).
 
Social empowerment
 
Social empowerment means a dignified social status for women in society and having qualities that allows ability to play leadership role and stand as a role model, because the primary responsibility of any human society is to ensure human dignity. In the study, social empowerment index developed by Rawat (2014) is used with some modifications. The five components (x₁, x₂, x₃, x₄ and x₅) of social empowerment and their relevancy weight (w₁,w₂, w₃, w₄ and w₅) have been weighted between the ranges of 0 to 2 depending on the response of the beneficiaries. Disagree carries a weightage of ‘0’, agree carries ‘1’ and ‘2’ for strongly agree. The social empowerment index (S) for each respondent is calculated as:
  Whereas:
S = Social empowerment index.
W_i = Relevant weight of the i^th components.
i = 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 components.
 
Economic empowerment
 
Women’s economic empowerment entails the right to take their own decisions to use their resources. This quality is attained through dignified dedication of self, exposure to practices that leads to development of such qualities and opportunity that is available for growth and development of economic practices. According to OCED (The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development), economic empowerment is “the capacity of women and men to participate in, contribute to and benefit from growth processes in ways that recognize the value of their dignity and make it possible to negotiate a fairer distribution of the benefits of growth”.
       
In this study and investigation, economic empowerment index was precisely developed for the research consisting of economic indicators appropriate to this study and following the index used by Rawat (2014) with some modifications in order to obtain result that is significant to the study area.
       
The ten components (X₁, X₂, X₃, X₄, X₅, X₆, X₇, X₈, X₉ and X₁₀) of economic component and their relevancy weights (W₁, W₂, W₃, W₄, W₅, W₆, W₇, W₈, W₉ and W₁₀) have been weighted between the ranges of 0 to 2 depending on the response of the beneficiaries. Disagree carries a weightage of ‘0’, agree carries ‘1’ and ‘2’ for strongly agree. The economic empowerment index (E) for each respondent is calculated as:
  Whereas:
E = Social empowerment index.
W_i = Relevant weight of the ith components.
i = 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 components.
 
Other empowerment/impacts
 
Certain qualities that contribute to all round development and empowerment have been included to assess the respondents. Few of such qualities used are marketing skills and technical skills.
       
The two components (X₁ and X₂) of other impacts and their relevancy weight (W₁ and W₂) have been weighted between the ranges of 0 to 2 depending on the response of the beneficiaries. Disagree carries a weightage of ‘0’, agree carries ‘1’ and ‘2’ for strongly agree. The empowerment index (O) for each respondent is calculated as: Whereas:
O = Social empowerment index.
W_i = relevant weight of the ith component.
i = 1 and 2 components.
       
The scores for the entire above empowerment category have been arranged from 0 to 10 in order to have a uniform scale. The weightage of different category depending on the number of components has been adjusted to fit in the scale.

Table 1 reveals the social empowerment of the beneficiaries was characterized based on their weight age as low (<3), medium (3 to 7) and high (>7) and data reveals that the social empowerment level of the beneficiaries were majority in the medium category (88.30 per cent) followed by high category (11.70 per cent) and 0.00 per cent in low category. From the above results it was found that majority 88.30 per cent of the beneficiaries were in the medium category and 11.70 per cent in high category. Through this interpretation we can agree that there is social empowerment level among the NSRLM beneficiaries to some extent and whereas 0.00 per cent in low category reveals that there is positive impact on women through participation in NSRLM. The findings are in consonance with Sharma et al., (2001); Anita and Rodriquez (2009); Rahman et al., (2012) and Sankaran (2015).

@table1

Table 2 reveals the economic empowerment of the beneficiaries was characterized based on their weight age as low (<3), medium (3 to 7) and high (>7). As per data 80.00 per cent of the economic empowerment level of the beneficiaries was in high (>7) category followed by 20.00 per cent in medium (3 to 7) category and 0.00 per cent in low (<3) category. From the above results it can be observed that majority of the beneficiaries’ i.e; 80.00 per cent were in high (>7) category. This may be due to the fact that NSRLM program had drastically empowered the beneficiaries in their economic life. The above research findings are in line with Sharma (2003); Sharma (2011) and Yasodha (2015).
       
@table2
 
Table 3 reveals the certain qualities that contribute to all round development and empowerments have been included to assess the respondents. Few of such qualities used are marketing skills and technical skills. The beneficiaries were characterized based on their weight age as low (<3), medium (3 to 7) and high (>7), respectively. Data reveals that 66.70 per cent of the beneficiaries were in high (>7) category followed by 33.30 per cent in medium category (3 to 7) and 0.00 per cent in low category (<3). From the above results it can be observed that majority of the beneficiaries were in high (>7) category (66.70 per cent) and 0.00 per cent in low category. This clearly proves the impact of NSRLM among the beneficiaries in terms of marketing skills and technical skills to a great extent. The findings are in consonance with Sharma (2010) and Dhiman (2014).
 
@table3
       
Table 4 revealed that majority of the beneficiaries about 86.70 per cent had faced constraint for lack of technical knowledge on the management of reports and files using phones and computer. Also, 85.00 per cent of the respondents had constraints on lack of accountancy knowledge as to utilization and record maintenance of money, followed by 81.70 per cent faced lack of coordination among the members and the community cadres, 38.30 per cent agreed to lack of knowledge on overall issues like book keeping and maintenance, 20.00 per cent faced constraints as insufficient trainings are conducted over livelihood activities and lastly 10.00 per cent felt the constraints on high bank and finance institution scrutiny. Similar findings are in line with the research finding of Goyal and Kaur (2001); Ajmeera (2014) and Sharma (2015). 
 
@table4

The study was limited only to Chumukedima Rural Development block of Dimapur district. Therefore, the findings of the study may limit to other districts of Nagaland, where NSRLM program is functioning. Relatable studies may be generalized to a great extent while assessing the empowerment of rural women through Nagaland State Rural Livelihood Mission (NSRLM). Since only limited variables were included in the present study, more variables may be included and broader study area in the further studies to have detail view of the study on socio-economic empowerment of rural women through NSRLM. Therefore, similar studies may be conducted on a larger scale in the state.